Death Knight
by A Dyslexic Writer
Summary: If only Ichigo could control his little sisters, then he wouldn't be in this mess. In order to guaranty his sisters' safety, Ichigo Kurosaki goes to Helios. It shouldn't have been much of a problem, since he was one of the strongest mages in the world, but strange things are happening at Helios, and Ichigo finds himself in the middle of a much bigger problem then he first thought.
1. Summary

Ichigo Kurosaki. To the world at large, he seemed like the average 15 year old boy, if a bit tall for his age and with some rather vibrant hair.

No one knew that he was secretly the top vigilante magician of the underground guild of illegal magic users, the Urahara Shop. He was known and feared as Zangetsu, the Death Knight, rouge fighter who hunts the mages of the Tower who believe themselves to be above the law and push at the boundary between humanity and the realm of demons. He is a magician whose raw power has reached the highest class... It's too bad he only really knows one low level spell.

'Hearing' about some suspicious demon energy readings coming from the lands top school for apprentice magicians, Urahara attempts to send Ichigo undercover to sniff out what is really going down.

A job that the boy refuses, not wanting to waste his time preforming a search on such little information, not to mention his own lack of interest in going to such a school. But his tune changes when he learns that his twin little sisters had signed up to enter the school, and if the danger was really they could be in trouble.

Now the Overpowered and Overprotective older brother is rushing off to Helios, getting himself mixed up in all of the trouble that goes down there as he unwittingly gets dragged into a massive war between numerous factions with the fate of humanity and demon kind alike hanging in the balance. All of it revolving around some nearly mute duke's son and a short girl with the same black mana as Ichigo himself.

Ironically, Urahara didn't even think something was going to happen, he made the whole mission up. He just wanted Ichigo to learn some damn spells for a change... Not that he's complaining...

* * *

 **There is going to be a gender swapped Blow, but since he was always pretty gender neutral that hardly makes a difference. (Both guys and girls crushed on him all the time.)**

 **Ichigo's awakened form with be the younger version of Zangetsu from when he was training in his inner world, with a second release form being the form of Zangetsu from the fusion of the Hollow and Soul Reaper halves.**

 **An illegal magician will be any magician whose power was first realized through any means other than training with another magician.**

* * *

 **The reason I am putting the up right now is because I have only just started writing this story, with a two chapter back log starting up, and I want to be a little more professional about it than in the past. So I am looking for a beta to help me with proof reading and explaining the grammar rules I might not know about.**

 **Right now I have to study for a test and do a project, but after this week I will be going full swing again and starting on this story as well as continuing two others a little.**


	2. Prologue

The night was clear, hardly a cloud in the sky to mask the moon hanging over the quiet farming district. A peaceful picturesque scene. So still as to take your breath away... and then it all exploded.

Large masses of landscape flew into the air as the nondescript building on top if it was blown away and a colossal figure began to emerge from underneath the rubble. Four twisted black towers with four joints each, with each ending in a four fingered claw pushed up out of the cracked soil. The claws swept down, striking the earth with a mortar like sound, kicking up even more dirt as they left claw prints similar to housing foundations.

Then out pushed its shoulders, followed by a monstrous head baring a hound like muzzle. As it reared back the figure unfolded two giant bat's wings, its body masked the moon and casted a shadow that covered the entire village. Its jaws opened up, exposing fangs the size of great swords as it roared. The hideous sound was accompanied by a dark purple aura that streamed out of the demon's lips.

It was a great demon, one that had expanded beyond the limits of nature. A creature that shouldn't have existed outside of the [Door]. Magical power radiated from the creature, a dark miasma that tore away at the surrounding farm land, reducing the vegetation to rot.

But, as the creature tried to pull its legs out of the ground, two streaks ran across its body, one pale white, looking nearly identical to a bolt of lightning, while the other was striking black, so dark as to make the creatures already black look gray in comparison. The streaks slammed against the side of the beast, causing explosions of energy as they hit the demon with enough force to topple buildings, only for the blows to be shrugged off.

The two moved away from the demon, stopping on top of a mountain of up turned dirt, finally slowing down to the point where the human eye could get a good look at them, revealing them to be human in shape.

"You sure do know how to show a girl a good time, [Zangetsu]," one of the two figures said in a strangely seductive voice. She was a young woman, looking to be in her early thirties if judged by normal standards. Her smile seemed to be out of place, considering what was happening around her. Standing there on top of a mound of earth, long purple hair pulled back into a ponytail, with a shining white glow covering her sun kissed skin and highlighting her golden eyes, making her look like a war goddess. Though the way the aura shaped itself on the top of her head and around her hands, looked a bit like a cat's ears and claws. Her feline look was completed by what appeared to be a tail swinging back and forth behind her.

"This is no time for jokes, [Shunkō]," the second figure said, his voice much more serious. The young man was rather pale, with slightly wavy black hair and piercing blue eyes half hidden underneath his black hooded cloak. Though most people would hardly count those as his most interesting features. They would be too busy looking at the massive sword he held in his right hand. The blade was pitch black and the size of his entire body. Bigger than any normal great sword it was as sharp as a razors edge and resembled a giant butcher knife, with white cloth wrapped tightly around the grip with some left over trailing behind the sword. "We should hurry and finish this before the dogs of the [Tower] arrive."

"Ah, but I wanted to take my time with it? Do it nice and slow. You know, really get the blood pumping," Shunkō said with a sideways grin directed at her partner, "but I suppose you're right." The cat like woman started to chant, her words seeming to blur together as she performed her incantation. Eight glowing spheres appeared in the air around her, moving upwards and growing in size. As they grew their edges became less and less distinct, electricity crackling along their surfaces. "[Raijin]... [Senkei]!.."

Eight bolts of lightning jumped from the sphere, striking the demon who gave a shocked cry of pain as the electricity moved into its scales and ran though the beast's body. But even though it had felt the attack, it was still far from dead by it.

"The thing is just too big. I can't kill it with lightning spells," Shunkō said, sounding rather disappointed.

"Then we will simply have to use force," Zangetsu replied, preparing his sword.

The demon spun its head around to face them, pale amber eyes glaring down at the two, the slitted pupils narrowing into needs.

Taking in a deep breath it exhaled a dark purple beam of light that blasted into the ground where the two stood, tearing though the space like a tornado, and setting the soil itself ablaze with white hot fire.

But even before the ray had hit, both had already moved out of the way with speed that surpassed what the eyes could follow. They circled the demon, clawing and slashing at its joints, its ears, its eyes, and throat. With each blow another small stream of the monster's blue blood gushed out. But the demon was simply too large for the shallow wounds to ever be able to kill it.

The two were forced to break off as the beast rived about, its wings batting at the air and shooting off hurricane winds that ripped trees out of the ground and blew the nearby farm houses to pieces. The monster started to throw its head from side to side, attacking blindly in rage and pain.

"This is starting to get out of hand," Shunkō said as she watched the destruction.

"Starting?" Zangetsu said as if scoffing. The wind blew down his hood, revealing him to have the face of a man in his late teens, his wavy black hair reaching down to his shoulders. "It is time I finished this," He mumbled grabbing onto his sword with both hands.

Shunkō smiled as she saw his shift in stance and felt the change in the flow of his mana. "Alright then, I'll leave this to you," She said, jumping away from the boy and disappearing in a flash of light.

Closing his eyes, Zangetsu started to mumble, "My name shall be the last thing you ever hear. [Tensa Zangetsu]. [Bankai]." Black fire rushed out of the young man's body, expanding outwards and running over the ground. The fires that had started to spread were snuffed out, as if they were drowning in this greater flame. Then, the flow of the black mana reversed, drawing itself back to the body of the young man, covering him in darkness.

The shadows peeled away from him, revealing white underneath.

His cloak had turned white, with only a strip around the collar remaining its original black color. His hair had also drained of color and was as snow white as the coat, and with his already pale skin paling even further, he looked as though the moon that had left the heavens was standing upon the hill side. Though if one looked closely, they would have recoiled in shock, believing that the man had become a monster.

A piece of bone like mask was attached to the top left half of his head, a mixture of white and black with a large horn growing out of the side. The eye underneath it having changed from blue to a cold golden color, with the whites changed to black. That, combined with his calm, unfeeling expression gave him the look of a demon with human skin.

His sword had also changed, the large cleaver becoming more and more condensed, until it resembled a katana, a guard appearing above the hilt and the long white cloth turned into a short black chain.

Wordlessly, he raised the blade, pouring his black mana into the sword until it couldn't hold anymore, causing tendrils of the dark energy to sweep around him. Then with two words, he swung his blade. "[Getsuga Tenshou]!" The battle cry rang out, even over the noise of the monster, drawing the demon's attention, but it was too late of it to react.

The dark energy rushed forward in a wide arc, growing as it went and becoming thinner, though no less powerful. It ripped through the air, pushing up a wind as if it was a physical object, ripping through the air. It collided with the demon's long neck, and after a mere second of shock, began to pass through it, cutting the demon's head clean off before continuing to fly off into the distance, only disappearing after it faded from view entirely.

The demon's body fell to the ground, blood pouring out of the wound covering the hill side.

Zangetsu breathed a sigh as he closed his eyes and started to let go of his magic. As the power left him, his form became a blur behind a cloud of black smoke. He seemed to grow half a head taller, his robed clothes being replaced by simple casual wear and the wild shoulder length white hair being replaced by shorter wild orange hair. "Its over," he said, his voice sounding more like a young man then a cold warrior.

"You did really well today, Ichigo," Shunkō said, her arms wrapping around his back, pressing his head into her chest. The woman took pleasure in seeing him blush at the action. Though she too started to release her awakening, the white glow and cat like ears and tail disappearing, though the feel of a cat seemed to remain.

"Yoruichi... can you just take us home... already... before the Tower's Magicians get here?" Ichigo said, trying to struggle out of the woman's grip, though she wouldn't let him go.

"Oh, you want to take me home with you? You really are becoming a player aren't you?" Yoruichi teased, though she started up the teleportation spell, causing them both to disappear in a flash of light.

Another job had been completed.


	3. Chapter 1

Ichigo walked down the street, back in his home town, his own element. He was still a bit tired from the day before, but he had gotten a summons from his 'boss'. So tired as he was, he walked down the semi-busy street heading towards HQ, the Urahara Shop.

The Urahara Shop was not the most glamorous of places. In fact, if it really had been the candy store that it pretended to be, then it would have gone out of business a long time ago. Everything about the store screamed 'half-assed', from its dull sign, its faded paint job, the lack of anything to distinguish it or sell its goods, and the fact that it was too far away from the normal shops for people to just stumble upon. The thing looked like a dump. But then again, that was the point. It wasn't supposed to get customers.

Ichigo pushed though the front door, ignoring the squeaking hinges as he entered. They had been squeaking for at least the last eight years, since before the first time he had ever stepped though that door. And like the door, little in the shop had changed. The only newish addition was small girl, around eleven years old, who was sweeping up the place.

Ururu looked up at Ichigo as he entered, giving him a smile that didn't seemed to effect her eyes, which kept their thousand yard stare. She would have been a cute little kid if it wasn't for those eyes, with the black twin ponytails and her pink polkadot skirt. But her face still held trama, even if she had been doing better than when they had first found her. "It's good to see you, Ichigo," She said softly, giving him a little bow, "The boss is down stares, if you need him that is."

"Thanks, and it was nice to see you," Ichigo said, giving her a kind smile and patting her head as he walked past, and though a back door labeled 'employs only'.

The back room looked like a low budge living space, having just the basic cooking instruments and a short table to sit at. Just another bit of smoke to hide what the place really kicked up the table to reveal the trap door underneath.

Saying that the 'Urahara Shop' was an Underground Orginization could be taken most literally, as Ichigo passed by the magical barriers and into the expanded space underneath the shop.

The underground of the Urahara Shop was big. How big? One could fit an entire palace inside of the space. There were enough living quarters to house over a hundred people if needed, with several large training rooms, a lab, a control station, cafeteria, a school, and everything else that might be needed in order for people to live down their without ever going to the surface.

The reason for this was simple, may of the members of 'Urahara Shop' were criminals in the eyes of the Empire; their crime, existing.

It was an Orginization made up entirely out of victims of the State. People who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or happened to be born with something that was enough to be considered a crime.

A prime example would Ururu. The girl had been born with her magician's mark already part way awakened. It was rare for such a thing to happen. And when it did happen, the Magicians of the Tower would get involved. They would take the child, and experiment on it. Not that the world outside of the Tower was fully aware of this. They believed that they took the children away for their own safety, in order to protect them from the powers that they could not control.

The Tower was the ultimate authority, holding more power than even the Royal Family, though they didn't wield it openly. Their Organization was old, far reaching, and in that strange way of corrupt organizations, always hungering for more power, more knowledge, more influence.

Ururu's parents had not wanted to give their little girl up, and had tried to hide what she was. When the Tower found out, and sent its people to take the child, the parents refused to give her up.

They killed the girl's mother and father. They did it right in front of her.

Ururu had gone berserk, her magic fully awakening in response to the moment, and she killed the magicians that had been sent to take her. She ran away from the Tower, though they continued to hunt her, turning the world against her by saying that she was the one that killed her own family. She was pursued until she was found by Kisake Urahara, who took her into his Organization in order to keep her safe.

That had been over two years ago, and the girl was slowly starting to recover. She was more talkative then before, and could be seem smiling and laughing at times. It was amazing the kinds of things people could recover from. But the scars from her past would probably remain for the rest of her life.

Ichigo continued down the halls of the underground base. People recognized him as he passed and would give their greetings or stop him to have a short word. Each of them looking to him with big smiles and hopeful eyes. Admiration clear in their voices, whether young or old, Ichigo was a hero to them. Dozens of people, all of them wishing him good luck, and telling him to keep fighting the good fight.

He was more than half way to his final destination, when he heard a voice that made his body freeze up. "Itsygo!.."

The teenage boy turned, and planted his feet, calling up enough mana to reinforce his stomach in preparation for what he knew was coming.

The little green blur flew down the corridor straight at him, slamming into his stomach and sending him skidding across the floor as short little arms wrapped around his waist and started to try to squeeze the life out of him.

"Nel... need to... breath..." He gasped as he struggled to pulled the girl's arms away from his waist. Finally getting her off, he lifted her up, holding her at arms length. The little green haired girl stared back at him with her wide hazel eyes, eyes that had slitted red pupils. Ichigo had to hold in a grown of pain, wondering if this time the two little goat's horns sticking though the girl's hair had managed to leave a mark on him.

"Hiz Itsygo! Ye ceme to plwy wid Nel?" Nel said, widening her smile to show both missing baby teeth and one rather interesting fang. He put her down and ruffled her hair a little, trying to ignore the scar that when from the top of her forehead down to the bridge of her nose.

"Maybe in a bit, Nil. I got to talk to Hat'n'Clogs first," Ichigo said, a slightly slimy feeling on his chest informing him that he already had some of the girl's snot on his clothes...

Regardless how she looked, Nel was a human child. The key word there being 'was'. It had been one of Ichigo's first missions when he found her. A mission to take down a group of magicians who had been performing forbidden spells on orphan children.

He wasn't exactly sure what the men were even trying to do. They guessed they had been trying to feed children to mid rank and higher demons in order to bind them to the world so that they could question the demon's for knowledge. But for some odd reason, when they tried to feed little baby Nel's soul to the demon, the child's soul ate the demon instead. Leading to the monster of a headache that now haunted the Urahara Shop.

Usually the girl stayed underground, since in order to move about above ground, she would need spells cast on her in order to hide the demon like features she had developed. And even then, she would need to have a trained magician with her at all times in order to keep an eye out for anyone who might recognize her demonic mana.

"Well then, if you hurry, then you can have lunch with the two of us," Yoruichi said, walking out into full view. Ichigo tried and failed to push down a blush when he noticed the fact that she was only wearing some rather showy undergarments. He struggled to look away, knowing at she was doing all these things because she loved to see people's reactions. "What's the matter little Ichigo? You feeling sick? You're looking a bit flushed."

"Oh noes! Itsygo is sicks!?" Nel shouted, slapping her cheeks. "Don's worries Itsygo, Nurse Nel will make ye all better wid her Nel Sho..."

"No!" Ichigo shouted, cutting the girl off. "I'm fine, nothings wrong, Nel. There is no need for a... Nel Shower..." He said, trying to hold back a shutter.

He didn't quite remember how it came about, but they had found out that the little girl had the ability to vomit healing mana. She called it her "Nel Shower"... it was effective but... no one wanted to be puked on.

Yoruichi started to laugh at Ichigo's expense before she leaned down and scooped up Nel in her arms. "How about we go and get that lunch. You can play with your big brother Ichi later." She said as she carried the mutated child away.

Yoruichi was something like the surrogate mother as well as a role model for all of the orphan children that their organization picked up. Something that was both very touching, and absolutely terrifying. If even one of the dozens of children ended up like Yoruichi, the world suffer.

Ichigo watched them go before doing his best to clean his shirt and continue on down towards Urahara's office. He didn't bother to knock. He just pushed the door open and walked in.

"Alright, I'm here. What'd you want?" Ichigo said, crossing his arms and looking over at his boss.

Sitting in the middle of a room the looked almost exactly like the back room entrance to the underground complex, was a middle aged man dressed in a black and green coat with a diamond design. A green and white stripped bucket hat sat on his head, to really doing anything to hide his messy bleached blonde hair. He was leaning back, one arm resting on a raised leg with the hand rubbing at the stubbles of hair on his chin as he read some papers.

Looking up, he gave a stupid looking grin as he saw Ichigo standing there with his arms crossed. "Ichigo, just the man I wanted to see," He said, gesturing to the teen to sit on a cushion on the other side of the low table, "I was hoping I could get a report from you on what happened the other day on your mission."

"I thought I already sent you my report," Ichigo said with a slight grunt.

"Well, you did, but it wasn't very informative. All you wrote was 'Everything is dead'. Kind of need more to go on," Urahara said with a chuckle and shrug, "And Yoruichi's report didn't tell me anything I needed to know either."

Urahara slide a piece of paper over to Ichigo before pulling out a paper fan, unfolding it in front of his face to hid his smile. Ichigo glanced down at the page before flushing bright red and proceeding to rip the thing to pieces. "That woman is insane..." Ichigo growled to himself as he tried to beat the flush down and erase the memory of what he had just seen.

He should have known better then to read it. Especially after finding out that the woman had made a small fortune writing a serious of books to teach girl how to get their crushes' attention; '9999 Ways to Seduce a Man'. Though in all honesty, it was more about sexually frustrating them than it was seduction. They sometimes wondered if she was really a human, or a succubus in disguise.

"That isn't a report, not at all... She told you to make me read that, didn't she?" Ichigo said, throwing the older man a death glare.

"I can neither conform nor deny this," Urahara said, trying and failing to hold back a set of chuckles, "Either way, based upon what you found, we might need to take drasticly different actions. So please, enlighten me."

Taking a deep breath, Ichigo forced a serious expression back onto his face. "We followed that lead on the suspicious ingredient purchases to a small village town, a secluded place in the north western section of the Empire, near the misty mountains. And when we got there, we found the place deserted. Didn't take long to find the underground lab where the bad shit was going down," Ichigo said closing his eyes and shaking his head, "Five Magicians had taken the people of the village to be used as sacrifices in order to try to open up a [Door]. Yoruichi and I stopped them from completing the process, but a handful of demons managed to slip through, including one Higher Demon. The civilians died in the blood sacrifices, magicians died from the demons that got loose, and we killed the demons. Everything died. End of story."

"Did you manage to gather anything from there labs? Any hint to who they might have been connected to?" Urahara asked, though Ichigo just shook his head in response. "Figures. Guess you two didn't have time to search. You had to clean up the demons and get out before the Tower arrived."

"Speaking of which, has the Tower released any information about the event?" Ichigo asked.

"As if. Completely covered up. The town never even existed. By now all the evidence that might have been left will be in their hands, assuming they didn't just burn it," Urahara chuckled, though he sounded completely disgusted by it.

"You think they were directly connected?" Ichigo asked.

"Don't know. Doesn't matter now. It's out of our hands," Urahara said with a sigh. Before looking at Ichigo and giving a wide grin. "You did good though. If the Door had gone unchecked it could have been a complete disaster," He said, trying to cheer the boy up. Ichigo only nodded, his eyes not meeting the older man's. "But since this case has been brought to a close, we might as well get you started on your next one." Ichigo glanced back up at Urahara who had brought back out his fan again. "Tell me, you ever heard of Helios?"

Ichigo frowned a bit, searching his memory for the name. "I think so. That's one of those high end magic schools for noble to send their brats, right?" Ichigo said scratching his chin, "I remember hearing something about it, but I'm not very familiar with it myself."

"Yeah, though it isn't actually a place for high borns only. Sure you can buy your way in, but in reality it is more of a recruiting ground for various magic organizations. They only take the 'best talent'," Urahara said, almost mockingly, "Though to get to the point, we've gotten some intel about demon readings inside the school area. But nothing is being done about it. No investigation, no check of the senses, people are just going on as if nothing is happening."

"Are you suggesting foul play?" Ichigo said with a frown. "That sounds like a bit of a stretch. We usually have more evidence to go on than that."

"Yeah, well, the problem is that no one is allowed into the school. It prides itself for being a place were no outside influence is permitted, going so far as to have its own personal barrier to stop unwanted teleportation. Even high nobility can't send representatives for no reason. The royal family were only permitted to send two guards with the princess," Urahara said his grin widening, "So if we are going to get info, we need a man to go in undercover."

Ichigo's eyes widened. He did not like where this was going. "Like hell!" He shouted, slamming a hand against the table, causing the papers to scatter.

"You didn't even let me ask first," Urahara said, pretending to feel hurt.

"I'm not going to no damn school! I've got better things to do with my time!" Ichigo shouted, pushing himself up from the table.

"Ichigo, be reasonable. Who else can we send?" Urahara said, trying to wave the boy down.

"Anyone else! Orihime! She's could do it!"

"Orihime is a talented girl, but she is still only just starting out. I don't feel safe with sending her into a possible combat zone alone."

"Then how about Chad!? He's strong enough to handle himself!"

"Sado is strong enough, but he's a giant. He draws too much attention to himself. Besides, we wouldn't even be able to get him in. You know his back ground is sketchy."

"...Yoruichi?" Ichigo said, clutching at straws.

"You're kidding right?" Urahara said with a laugh, before having to tilt his head out of the way of a short throwing knife that flew through his door frame and passed straight through where his head had been. "Not that she couldn't pass as a young bombshell student, or that she couldn't complete a stealth mission flawlessly, but..." Urahara said quickly, not wanting to anger said woman. "...she would drive the entire school up the wall in just a few days."

"I can't go. I can't just drop everything and had to some school. That kind of mission would take a long time. What if something happens and I am not here to help." Ichigo said, sounding as though he was pleading at this point.

Urahara nodded slowly, turning away from Ichigo, a slight smile playing on his lips. It was a look that Ichigo knew, and one he didn't like. "And here I thought that you would be the first one to volunteer going to make sure that the school was safe. I mean, it would only be natural, considering..." He said, letting his voice fall on, forcing Ichigo to ask.

"Considering what?" Ichigo said, a sinking feeling entering the pit of his stomach.

"Considering both your little sisters had already applied to start school there, and they were both accepted," Urahara said, with a sideways smile.

Ichigo's jaw feel open and he glanced down at two pieces of paper that Urahara had put down on the table. They were acceptance letters, one for Karin Kurosaki, the second for Yuzu Kurosaki, Ichigo's twin little sisters.

Turning around, he bolted out of the door, running straight past everyone who tried to talk to him in the hallways so that he could go and get conformation of what he had just been told.

Yoruichi slide into the room after he left, closing the door silently behind her. She was back to being dressed in her tight fitting stealth garb and was looking at Urahara with a meaningful look. "How mad do you think he'll be when he finds out that there was no demon activity reads and that you just tricked him into going to school?"

"Oh, he will be livid," Urahara said with a chuckle, "But he'll get over it. It's for his own good." The smile slowly fell down off of his face. "Looking at him, seeing the things he manages to accomplish. It's easy to forget that he's only fifteen."

"You're right about that. Even among other Magicians First Class, he is probably in the top ten strongest in the world," Yoruichi said with a sort of proud smile.

"But he is still just a kid. He is just a kid, and we send him on mission after mission. He has had to see hell over a dozen times in the last two months alone," Urahara said, shaking his head, "When he first started out, I would look at him and I would see a boy with unbelievable talent and the drive it would take to become one of the best. Now, I see a young man, burdened by the expectations we place on him. We turned the kid into a hero, and we never even considered if he was ready for it."

A moment of awkward silence passed between the two, as they considered what they had done. Then finally Yoruichi spoke. "You're right. This will be good for him," She said, giving Urahara one of her sly smiles, "Who knows, maybe he will learn some more spells for once. Honestly, who ever heard of a First Class Magician who could only use one spell."

* * *

"I can't believe you two applied to magic school without even telling me!" Ichigo half shouted, he was having a hard time organizing his emotions at the moment. As soon as he had got home he had cornered his little sisters in their bedroom and got a confession out of them. Now the two of them sat in front of him on Yuzu's bed, while Ichigo faced them from Karin's. The destressed older brother pushed his head down into his hands, trying to collect himself. "Did you even tell our dad about this? What did he have to say?"

"We... haven't told him yet." Yuzu admitted weakly. The more tame of the twins, Yuzu was not the kind of person people would expect to run away from home to learn magic, her short brown hair and soft face features would convince anyone that she was the perfect angel. Though Karin would be another matter, since she choose a rather boyish shoulder length hair cut for her black hair and was a bit withdrawn. But Ichigo didn't expect that either twin really had to convince the other. They both had a stubborn streak a mile wide. "We were going to after we got the acceptance letters... but... we couldn't find a good moment." It was a weak excuse.

"Like the two of you would have given us your blessings to go." Karin said crossing her arms and putting on a face that was determained to not look like a child who got caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

"You're damn right we wouldn't! You two are eleven years old!" Ichigo said, his eye twitching slightly.

"Yeah but... there isn't an age requirement to get in. You are allowed to start as soon as you can pass the entry tests." Yuzu mumbled, as if that changed everything. "The princess started school there last year, and she was only nine."

"Most people don't go to one of these magic schools until they are at least sixteen. If you go there, you two will be the youngest people in your entire class. And not by a small amount." Ichigo counted.

"What does that matter!?" Karin said angrily, "We want to become magicians. Is that so wrong? We are gifted, and we want to learn to use our gifts," Ichigo's arguments seemed to die in him as he looked into Karin's steady stare as she continued with, "I never understood why you never tried. You had a lot of talent when it came you controlling mana, but you never used it. You have a rare gift, and you're wasting it."

Ichigo didn't know what to say. What could he say? He had made a point of keeping his family in the dark. Not wanting them to worry about him as he went off to endure intense training and later on went on dangerous mission after dangerous mission. By the time he was his sisters age, he had already been a Third Class Magician through sheer raw power.

"Please understand Ichigo," Yuzu said, looking to her older brother with puppy dog eyes, "we really want to do this. If we can become magician, then we can really make a difference, and make sure things like... like what happened to mom never happens again."

Ichigo closed his eyes. Of course that's what this was about. That's what it had been about for him too. Thinking back, he shouldn't be so surprised. If anything, he should be surprised it took so long for them to decide on this course of action.

Standing up, he walked over to the two and put a hand on each of their heads. "Honestly, you two are being so stupid." He said, his voice tired as he finally let out that sigh he had been holding back. The twins didn't know what to make if it. They hadn't expected this type of action. "But at least you are being stupid for all the right reasons. Congratulations on getting accepted, I'm proud of you. And don't worry about talking to the old man, I'll talk to him. That should make it easier for you."

"You aren't mad anyone?" Yuzu asked tentatively.

"I still wish you would have talked to me about it, but I understand why you didn't. I'm not going to send you off with angry shouts." Ichigo said, causing the two girls to give sighs of relief. "Speaking of which, I'm going to head out and buy some things. If you two are going, then we need the least we can do is send you off with a party."

Yuzu and Karin looked at each other before both jumped up and hugged themselves around their older brother's waist, Ichigo himself putting an arm around each of them.

He understood why they were going. He knew he wouldn't be able to convince them not to. But if there was going to be danger there, even if it was only the shadow of a chance, then he would do whatever was needed.

* * *

After the heart filled talk with his little sisters, followed by a much shorter talk, mostly involving fists and crying with his old man, Ichigo walked out his front door. Walking out just a few blocks towards the market district, he stopped, glancing upwards.

Sitting in a nearby tree was a black cat, staring down at him with intelligent yellow eyes, seeming to be waiting for something.

Locking eyes with the cat, Ichigo spoke out loud to it. "Tell Urahara to make the arrangements." The cat nodded, standing up from its perch before jumping off the branch. The furry creature moved at such an incredible speed that it seemed to vanish into thin air. Turning back to the cobble road, Ichigo kept walking. He wasn't going to tell his sisters he was going to follow them to school. He'd let it be a surprise.

* * *

 **The search for the right beta reader continues. "Ichigo Muramasa" gave it a try, but found that it was not his/her calling.**

* * *

 **For those who are familiar with Black Haze, Rood isn't going to be coming in until the chapter after next. Ichigo will start school late, but still a little earlier than Rood.**


	4. Chapter 2

**By the way, I own nothing and am making zero money.**

* * *

"Who's stupid idea was it to make this damn school the size of a whole city!?" Ichigo growled to himself as he walked along one of the many many paved paths that interconnected through entire school campus like a labyrinth, in some places having multiple leaves of walk ways stacked on top of each other, each one wide enough for thirty people to walk shoulder to shoulder.

More than forty building populated the campus, which was just insane, given the fact that there was only around four hundred students and thirty or so professors. Why did they need so much god damn space? Each white marble building was over four stories tall, each story being twice the size of the more traditional three meters you find in normal places, and between the buildings would be entire gardens, with artistic hedges, decorative fountains and flowers arranged in such a way as to resemble the setting sun. Everywhere you looked you would see the school's iconic yellow star like symbol, made in what Ichigo suspected was real gold.

Why did rich bastards always have to have a dick measuring competition blowing money in such stupid ways? They could have gotten by with probably just five buildings half the size of these once, and no one needed to have twelve separate gardens.

He was supposed to be finding his way to the central office, but seeing as that wasn't the building in the center of the campus, and the instructions he was giving to find it forgot to mention which was on the stupid buildings was the 'Empire's Eternal Raising Sun Building'.

At this point, Ichigo didn't really care about finding the people anyways. It was early morning on a weekend, so he had plenty of time to sort things out before classes started the following day. The thing he wanted to find was where his little sisters were.

As it turned out, getting into the school was a little more challenging than he thought. No getting accepted, that was piss easy. He managed to get a good enough grade on the written exam to get by, and when they wheeled out a magic stone to test his ability to manifest the mana inside of the stone, he broke the thing from over doing it.

The problem lay in the fact that they had wanted him to start school the next semester. Meaning he was going to be made to wait six months before getting in. He couldn't wait that long.

It took a lot of hassling the administrator of the campus before the woman finally gave in and let the boy enter, so Ichigo hadn't seen his little sisters in almost four weeks. And since they for some reason had been denied from writing home more than once every month, so as to not distract them from studies, Ichigo only had gotten one letter from each of them, and that was very early on. So anxiety was running a little high, only made higher by the high amount of natural mana in the air.

Ichigo was used to sensing mana, most people who had [talent] could sense it, even if just a little bit, and Ichigo's senses were telling him that there was a lot of mana in the air at this school. Usually, the presence of high mana in the air would infer that someone was casting a spell, meaning he was under attack. So for there to be just this constant charge in the air was making the veteran swordsman more than a little jumpy.

Though his sixth sense was telling him more useful things too, such as the exact number of teachers on the campus and were they were. Since the teachers weren't bothering to hide their own mana, Ichigo could track it pretty easily if needed. Sadly he couldn't find his sisters the same way.

People only started to be able to produce their own mana after they awaken their [Magician Marks] for the first time. Until then, even the talented can only tap into an external source of mana in order to preform magic. Usually this meant [magic stones] or [magic talismans] which were just storage devices for mana. All of the students on campus would be learning to use such things, since none of them are supposed to be real magicians yet.

In fact, most of them would never become Magicians at all. Out of the general population, just over one percent of people are capable of exhibiting some form of control over mana. Out of them, only about five percent will ever awaken their marks and become Magicians.

After that comes the hierarchy within the ranks of Magicians, starting at the bottom with [Seventh Class Magicians], who hardly produce any mana at all, and can barely cast spells without aide, and ending at the top with [First Class Magicians], who can casually level entire building. Though hardly anyone ever gets past the Fifth Class. In the entire world, there were probably only a hand full of real First Class Magicians. Any Organization that had one would be considered something of a superpower. Even the Tower only had two of them. The Urahara shop had three; Ichigo, Yoruichi, and Urahara himself.

It was why Ichigo's alternate persona, Zangetsu, often called by the public as the Prime Sinner or the Death Knight, could go around picking fights with people as influential as the Tower, and getting a reputation as public enemy number one, without a single bounty on his head or anyone really trying to hunt him down. It just wasn't worth messing with a First Class Magician. If the options were fighting a First Class Magician and simply jumping off a cliff, most sensible people would just risk the cliff. You would have a higher chance of survival that way.

One could always send their own First Class Magician in order to fight, but then their would be the fallout to deal with, as a battle between two First Class Magicians causes more than just a little damage. If two of them went full force against each other, then the city around them would probably be declared a disaster zone.

Trying to get a more birds eye view of the place, Ichigo climbed up a set of stare to one of the over pase like walk ways that bridged between buildings, though in the end, his first hint of where his sisters where didn't come from sight, but from a familiar sound; the sound of someone getting on Karin's nerves. "Why don't you jerks all just fuck off!"

Moving towards the source of her voice, Ichigo found himself looking down on what appeared to be a scene about to unfold. His little sisters were being cornered by six older students, five boys and a girl, all of them about sixteen or seventeen years old. Karin standing in front of Yuzu with her chin held up and a defiant expression on her face as the less confrontational sister hovered worriedly behind her.

"Now is that anyway to talk to someone who is just trying to give you some friendly advice," the guy in front said. He was fairly average in appearance, short brown hair and a young nobleman's facial features. He might have been handsome, if it wasn't for that ugly fake smile on his face. His dress was the same school uniform as everyone else's, the only thing different about it from Ichigo's own was the mark on the Helios mark on the shoulder was blue instead of black, marking him as being a grade above the entry level class. All of the students who were cornering Yuzu and Karin had those blue marks. All of the underclassmen around the courtyard were very pointedly not looking in that direction."So how about you take that good advice and stop messing around with the monster? All you're doing is causing trouble. It isn't like that thing is going to thank you."

"Lidusis isn't a thing, and he isn't a monster," Yuzu said, sounding angry about it.

The fake smile dropped as the boy glared angrily down at Yuzu, who recoiled backwards behind Karin a little more. "You know, we have been going easy on you two because you are just some stupid kids who managed to squeeze your way into Helios through dumb luck. We've been trying to be nice about this, but it seems you brats just insist on having it the hard way," the guy said, taking an intimidating step forward.

"How about you just say away from us!" Karin shouted, raising her fist and trying to make the first move, but the boy was nearly twice her size, and his reach far excided hers. He kicked out at her, getting her in the stomack and knocking her back and to the ground.

"Karin!" Yuzu shouted as she caught her twin before she could fall to the ground.

"This is for you brats' own goo..." The man never finished that sentence.

Both Yuzu and Karin were shocked when down from above dropped Ichigo, panting his foot squarely in the guys face and driving his head down into the ground with a satisfying smack.

"Damn, it looks like a step in a piece of shit," Ichigo said as he stood up tall, glaring at the five remaining bullies as he twisted his foot on the guy's already injured face.

"Ichigo!" Yuzu and Karin both shouted, surprise mixed with a sort of happiness. All fear disappearing with the appearance of their elder brother.

Ichigo turned his head towards them with the same smile he always showed them, the one that made him look completely untouchable. "How about you two hang back. I'll handle this."

Recovering from shock, one of the older student moved forward. "Damn [Idun] bastard!" the boy said, this one having longer blue hair, in a style more often seen on the streets than in noble houses. He grabbed onto Ichigo's collar with his right hand, pulling his left back in a fist. "You think you are gonna..."

The move was so fast that for all the world it seemed like Ichigo only casually raised his left hand to brush off the man's grab, but an instant later, he was flipped head over heels and dropped down to the ground, straight on top of his already fallen comrade.

Ichigo looked over to the other four bullies, a smug expression on his face. "Next?"

The four of them took a step back, but the girl of the group pulled a small, bright blue stone on the end of a necklace out of his pocket; a magic stone. "You asked for it. [Margnra]... [Tenten]... [De..." The spell stopped as Ichigo's fist connected with the girl's stomach, knocking the air out of her. Then, while she was in shock, Ichigo pulled the magic stone from her hand and shoved it into her mouth as she gasped for air. Following it up with an uppercut that shattered the stone alone with a few of her teeth.

"Don't expect someone to just stand still and let you cast a spell on them," Ichigo said in a voice that suggested he felt he was talking to a complete retard. Then he moved on, quickly disposing of two more of the bastard, knocking them out cold before throwing their unconscious forms onto the growing pile.

The finally boy was stumbling away from Ichigo, trying to pull out his own magic stone. "[Margn... [[Margnra]..." He stammered, but Ichigo just batted the stone out of his head.

"Why are you wasting your time with those stones," he said with a condescending voice, "when there's so much mana in the air?" Raising up an open hand, Ichigo started to draw the free mana in the air towards his hand, letting the bright blue energy flicker around his fingers. It wasn't much mana, really, but it still put on a show as he clenched his fist.

Before the boy could react, Ichigo thrown a fast punch aimed straight for his face, having his fist stop just a centimeter away from the man's nose. The mana rushed forward, blasting his short black hair back as the older boy stared at the fist was wide eyes. Then, the guy's knees started to give way and he collapsed backwards to the ground, shivering.

"You ever mess with those two again, and I will not go so easy on you." Ichigo said, turning and walking away from the guy. Everyone in the area was whispering and pointing at him, but Ichigo didn't exactly care for the peanut gallery. The only thing that pissed him off about them was that they were prepared to just stand aside as two little girls got bullied by people at least six years older than them.

"Ichigo!" Yuzu and Karin cried together again as they ran to their older brother, throwing their arms around his waist in a hug.

"What are you doing here!?" Yuzu asked, not seeming to have registered the fact that her brother was now in a school uniform.

"Where did you learn to fight like that!?" Karin asked at the same time as Yuzu asked her question.

But before Ichigo could answer to either of them, a new person entered the scene. "What's going on here!?" An older man in a black cloak shouted as he saw the piled up bodies.

Ichigo turned towards the man, who appeared to be in his late twenties with plan brown hair pulled back into a pony tail. With his still young facial features, his gender neutral hair style, and his cloak that hid most of his body, Ichigo wouldn't have been able to distinguish him as a guy without his voice. Even so, he was a little dubious about assuming that it was a guy. He had been tricked before by that... damn Yoruichi.

Either way, Ichigo could immediately tell that this was a magician, more than likely one of the professors. And he had obviously just won a fight.

Not even his first day of school, and it looked as though he was already headed for the principle's.

* * *

"I would hope that us seeing you here today isn't the start of a trend, Mr. Kurosaki," the Principle said after getting Ichigo to recount the events. She was a much older woman, who's hair had gone white from age. Winkles from the stress she must have had to endure dealing with all of those children lined her face.

Ichigo couldn't remember her giving him a name, but that hardly seemed to matter. She was acting out of her station, not her identity, so name's were mute. Like how she was calling him 'Mr. Kurosaki'. It was just a term of address, not really what he would call his name.

"While your motives were understandable, you should have reached out to one of the professors for help rather than taking matters into your own hands, and the force you used was excessive," She went on to say, "Though since you only acted in self defense and the defense of others, I am going to let you off. The others will be punished for attempting to use magic against their peers." With that she gave Ichigo his things for class and sent him out on his way.

Ichigo hadn't taken two steps out of the office before he was ambushed by his little sisters and they jumped onto him again. "Why didn't you tell us you were coming to school?" Yuzu asked him.

"Well, I decided to make it a surprise, just like how you two didn't tell me when you applied," he said, giving her a cocky look that made her blush as she realized that he was getting back at them for not telling him.

"But why did you come in the first place? I thought you didn't care about becoming a Magician," Karin said, she was glad that Ichigo was there, he had a way of making the twins feel like everything would be alright, but she was still surprised to see him.

"I still don't give a damn about becoming a Magician," Ichigo said putting a hand on each of their heads, "but I'm not letting you two out of my sight. You couldn't stay out of trouble even if you wanted too." This time they were both embarrassed. Hard to argue about them not getting into trouble at the school when the first thing he saw of them there was bullies cornering them.

"Great, so now we have to go to class with our overprotective older brother glaring at everyone," Karin said with a sigh.

"If you want to go to this magic school, than that is the price you are going to have to pay," Ichigo said with a grin, "Now how about we stop standing around here and you two give me a tour before we all grow too old."

* * *

"It's official, I hate this campus," Ichigo groaned as the sun was going down on the horizon, "Why did they have to make it so needlessly huge?" Something was wrong with the world when a tour of the school would require an entire day, while stopping twice for meals.

As much as he enjoyed spending time with his little sisters after not seeing them for almost a month, he was getting more and more annoyed as he went around the campus. It wasn't even just the size of the place. For some odd reason wherever they went, people stared and whispered, apparently about how Ichigo beat the crap out of those other students that morning.

His little sisters had eventually showed him where the boys dorm was before they left for the night. Then he had to spend twenty minutes with some stupid woman at the front desk who kept asking him if he was sure he wanted his room key. Why the hell wouldn't he want his room key?

Finally reaching room 105, he pushed the key in and opened up the door. The first thing he noticed was that the room was roughly four times the size of his own room back home with the same white walls as everywhere else in the stupid academy and with the Helios symbol painted onto the walls. Ichigo felt like he was being made to start hating the color white and the feel of wide open spaces. Even for a shared room, it was unnecessarily big.

Dropping his stuff down on his desk, he looked around the room. It was pretty much completely empty, so he guessed his roommate hadn't done anything with it. Actually, there wasn't any sign that there had ever been someone there. Except for the fact that one of the two beds clearly had something underneath the blankets, though the thing was pulled up to the point where it was covering the guy's head.

Deciding that it would probably be better to just let the guy sleep rather than wake him up simply to have introductions, Ichigo started unpacking quietly.

He mostly only had the standard stuff, not anything that people would find out of the ordinary; clothes, tooth brush, some books and a family photo. Nothing too exciting. That was because everything that went into or out of the campus through luggage got checked by security. Yoruichi would smuggle him in all the things he would need later on. So Ichigo only had the special equipment that he could carry on his person, which included one communication device, and a magic talesman.

The talesman was a simple piece of wood, covered into an interesting shape with a skull like symbol on the front of it. Urahara had a tendency to put skulls on things, not that anyone understood why. The only real special thing about the talesman was some magic impressions Urahara put on it to make it change the color of the mana stored in it to blue.

While he was at the school, or at least in front of his classmates and teachers, Ichigo would be completely cut off from the mana stored inside of his body. So the way around that was that he would simply keep a charged magic talesman handy. If he needed mana, then he would draw it out of the talesman, and then recharge the talesman himself later.

His mana was a lot more dense and powerful than the normal brand they used on campus, and if he paced himself well, he could fight off a hundred mid rank demons just on the amount he could store in there. The only problem was that his black mana was somewhat iconic of a handful of really powerful magicians, so Urahara just made it so that the talesman would change the color.

Getting his stuff into order, Ichigo turned around and nearly jumped when he saw that his new roommate had emerged from underneath his blanket of solitude and was staring silently at him.

He was a big guy, though not gigantic like Chad, just about as tall as Ichigo himself. He had a natural looking build, not the kind one gets with harsh training, but more of from just good breeding and a healthy diet and light exercise. He had strong nobleman's shoulder and chin, and his strong grey hair, light skin and bright violet eyes would normally be connected with an generally attractive individual. That is, if it wasn't for his expression.

Ichigo had seen it before, but never in the face of someone so clearly from higher birth, the hollow, distant eyes looking out from underneath bangs that had been allowed to grow out of hand, and slack cheeks that gave his face a look that radiated a lack of energy, as if he could barely salvage the will to keep breathing. It made Ichigo wonder just what had happened to this guy to make him like this.

It took a whole three awkward seconds for Ichigo to recover from the shock of seeing the guy. "Sorry, didn't mean to wake you up. I'm Ichigo Kurosaki. I'm guessing we're going to be roommates for now..." Ichigo said, walking closer, planning on shaking the guy's hand, but he just pulled the blanket up over his head and curled up tightly underneath his blankets, as if trying his hardest to simply ignore Ichigo's existence.

Ichigo stood there, staring at the lump underneath the blankets, wondering just what was going on. But if experience had taught him one thing, it was that time healed just about everything, no need to push the guy if he was uncomfortable. So he just turned away and prepared to go to sleep himself.

This was to be Ichigo's first interaction with Lidusis, the 'monster' of Helios.

* * *

 **Ichigo uses rage, its super effective.**

 **The relationship between Ichigo and Rood isn't going to be love. It will be more like with Ichigo and Rukia were they both just get on each others nerves but have mutual respect for one and other.**

 **Yuzu is too sweet to give in to the 'Lidusis is a monster movement', Karin is too stubborn, and Ichigo just doesn't give a shit.**

 **Ichigo immediately earns a repuation on the campus for being an protective older brother, and a psychopath.**


	5. Chapter 3

Rood Chrishi had been given a lot of shitty jobs since she had become a Magician of Opion. It was down right embarrassing how many times she had been ordered to go out and help some old lady find her lost cat, retrieve some silly collectible trinket, or exact petty revenge on some guy who cheated on his girlfriend. Jobs that would hardly seem dignified enough for the famous Blow, the Black Magician, one of the handful of First Class Magicians around the world.

Not that anyone would ever make the connection between famous Black Magician, the striking young woman in black, with black hair and eyes that glowed bright blue with magical power, and Rood, the admittedly small young girl with ashen blond hair and soft baby blue eyes. It wasn't hard to understand why no one would ever make the connection. There was more than a twenty centimeters difference in height between her normal self and her awakened form. And while Blow had the body of a nineteen year old with a modest figure, Rood Chrishi didn't even look her real fifteen years, was well overdue for a growth spurt and had most of the assets of a girl three years younger.

Not that she ever complained that no one could believe her even if she told them. She didn't want people to recognize her wherever she went. She wasn't a shy girl, but if there was one thing she hated, it was being crowded around by a bunch of people asking her questions, saying how they were her biggest fans, and telling her how great she was. That's if they even said anything, usually they just stared at her like dumb animals. It happened every time she went anywhere in her awakened form. The worst offenders were children, who for some reason decided that she was their role model and that they should craft their lives in order to try to become as great of magicians as her.

Which leads to Rood's current frustration. She was on a mission, undercover, in a school for apprentice magicians. Life didn't get much shittier.

And as of usual, the objective had nothing to do with combating demons or uncovering wrong doings, or even assassination. No, her job was to help a kid who was getting bullied. A kid who was two years older than herself and looked like the kind of guy who would be doing the bullying if the pictures in her permission report were anything to go by.

Why couldn't see ever get an important job? It was as if her Organization Master was purposely going out of his way to give her stupid jobs. The one before this was pulling a guy's pants down in the middle of a public event. A mission that got a lot more interesting when a rival First Class Magician appeared and someone started to teleport low rank demons into the building.

It had been interesting, but not very fulfilling. Despite the fact that everyone who told the story of the event seemed to think she was there as some kind of heroine, tasked to defend the people from evil. Even though all she really did was show up, accidentally start a huge fight between people who were trying to steal some item that was being put up for sale, and then ran off as Shicmuom blew up the auction house like the dumbass loose cannon that he was. She didn't even manage to steal the pants she was supposed to.

It was quite amazing how she had done next to nothing ever since her first mission the year before, but people still treated her like the next coming of Meredith. People seemed to like her for no reason other than she was a First Class Magician that didn't go around over using their powers. But all the attention she had gotten from it, as well as the creepy fan mail, had caused her to loath having to interact with large numbers of easily impressionable people.

As she walked along behind her new 'Professor', Professor Heil, she couldn't help but wonder why her Master had already arranged for a her to be admitted into Helios in order to preform her mission, when they hadn't received the mission until a month after the semester had already started. Why the hell had he already planned on her going to school? He'd never given her a good reason for it. Why would she need to go to a school for beginners in magic when she was already one of the most powerful Magicians in the world?

"Ms. Chrishi, what are you thinking about so deeply?" Professor Heil said, noticing that the girl was lost in thought. That wasn't a hard thing to notice, considering she had moved a hand up to her chin and had screwed up her mouth, less with concentration than with indignation.

She immediately forced her face to relax and gave a reassuring smile. "It's nothing professor. Just thinking about my how lucky I am to be here, that's all," She said, keeping her voice sweet and innocent. She wanted to go underneath the radar, so she had to pretend to be as carefree and stupid as the rest of the people who flocked the these schools.

The over the hill professor smiled back, further showing the wrinkles of his face. The man hadn't aged with grace. His brown hair hadn't even started to grey, but he already looked like he could have been a grandpa. "Well then, we might want to hurry. The lesson will be starting soon, and I would like to have some time to introduce you to the class before it is time to began." It almost made Rood want to drag her feet, just so she didn't have to be introduced. Somehow sensing that Rood was less than enthusiastic, the professor continued to talk. "Don't be so nervous. Students here come from all different walks of life, neither your family or age matter. At Helios, all that counts is talent. So you shouldn't find it hard to fit in, since you are the first person to ever get a perfect score on the entrance exam."

"Is that so..." Rood felt her smile twitch slightly. She had never taken an entrance exam. Her Master had used his magic to transform into her and took the exam in her stead, without her permission, all to get her enrolled in a school when she didn't want to be. Then he went and claimed that she had some kind of terminal illness that stopped her from going to school for that first month so they wouldn't kick her out for not attending. She had known that the smart ass had gotten her a perfect score, but she hadn't known that it was the only perfect score.

"Usually, students who first come to this school are filled with a sense of fulfillment as they believe that simply making it this far means that they will someday become Real Magicians," Professor Heil said, his smile seeming a little less reassuring than it had been just a moment ago, "However, that is nothing but a wild dream. Just because you were admitted into Helios doesn't guarantee that you will manage to become an Official Magician. In fact, most of the students are unable to overcome their own limitations and fall into despair." He looked back to Rood. "So how about you? What will you do if all that effort you put in wasn't enough, Ms. Rood Chrishi?"

"Hm... well, if I still can't do it after working so hard," Rood said giving another fake smile, "then I suppose I just gotta quit."

Then man seemed to snap out of whatever thoughts had clouded his mind and began to laugh. "What a interesting response!" he said, turning away and moving through the hall a bit faster as he continued to laugh, Rood trailing along behind him, hating her life as the teacher explained the different classes of the school.

Rather than simply separating the school into different years of study, Helios was divided based upon the amount of skill and knowledge the individual has managed to develop so far. Whenever someone enters the school, they are placed in the lowest of the three runs, the Idun Class. Then twice a year there are promotion tests to see if the students are ready to processed to the next level. After Idun is Klad, the middle class, and above them is Hereus, the upper class. The three are distinguished by the different color symbols on their uniforms; Idun Black, Klad Blue, and Hereus Gold. With each grade that a student advances they get more benefits.

Though whether this was an aspirational thing, or the professors didn't want to waste time teaching students who were doomed to fail one on one, the professor didn't say.

"I will be in charge your Idun class for the remained, so while you will have other instructors at times, I will be the one who will be responsible for you. Though I doubt you will manage to get into any trouble. A smart girl like you who struggles with sickness. No I can't see you getting into any trouble at all," Professor Heil said with a laugh as finally stopped in front of a classroom. He didn't seem to notice Rood half heartedly laughing to herself about the 'sickness' comment, "Now how about we introduce you to your new classmates."

Like the rest of Helios, the classroom was larger than was probably necessary. There were around ten rows of eight desks a piece, to seat a mere fifty people. But the last three rows were all empty, except for two people. One of them was sitting in the middle of the row, and Rood recognized him from the pictures. It was Lidusis Dien Artian, separated from the rest of the students, just like he had been told. His long grey bangs prevented Rood from seeing much of his eyes, so it was difficult to say whether or not he even was paying attention to his surroundings.

The second person was sitting in the back corner by the window, and was very clearly uninterested in anything going on in the class as he blankly stared out the glass window with a bored expression on his face. The guy was tall, and had bright orange hair, the bangs cut shorter than most nobles wore them, so Rood guessed he was probably one of the people from the lower class who had gotten into Helios.

Actually, it was pretty easy to tell just by glancing over the class who was and wasn't from noble birth, even with all of the uniforms, especially with girls. This was because most noble ladies were raised with the intention of being married to a higher rank man in order to assure some benefit for the family, unless the parents were too high of nobility for that to be possible or they spoiled their children. So the girls were taught how to appear in the manner that was deemed beautiful by noble customs. Their posture, facial expressions and long hair were all characteristics that these girls would share.

On the other hand would be the girls from lower birth who would be made by their parents to have shorter hair cuts, if only slightly, and taught different ways of moving about, in order to be as unlike the noble standard as possible without smothering their femininity. This was less about the peasantry having a different standard for beauty and more because the parents didn't want to have their pretty daughters dragged away by corrupt noblemen. Rood's own appearance was like that, since her Guardian was horrified that some rich nobleman would try to win her away. Her ashen hair was slightly longer than shoulder length and her movements were more in toned with combat than with a fancy ball.

Two such girls that caught Rood's attention were two sitting together towards the side of the class, each separated from the others by just one seat. The thing that made them stand out so much was just how young they looked. Even though it would be a bit hypocritical to comment on youthful appearances, the two hardly looked over the age of eleven or twelve, much younger than the rest of the class, where the average seemed to be closer to seventeen.

"Alright everyone, I'd like to introduce a new face to the class. Meet Ms. Rood Chrishi," Professor Heil said, gesturing to the girl who was still evaluating the people in the room and trying to decide the best course of action, "Now because of her sickness, Ms. Chrishi has had to join our class a bit late, but try not to bully her just because she was a little late. I want you all to try to get along." Murmurs of consent came from the class, though Rood was to busy cursing the man for mentioning her 'sickness'. How embarrassing.

Being pointed towards an open seat more towards the front of the class than her intended target, Rood quickly tried to move out of the spot light. It wouldn't do for her to disobey already and head straight for Lidusis. She would first have to get a bit more information on what was going on so she would best now how to approach the problem.

She was more than a little disconcerted about how all the people in the class seemed to continue to talk about her, and sounding as if they had already heard she was coming. She just hated the attention.

She tried to distract herself from this by thinking about her target. Lidusis wasn't a bad looking guy from an objective stand point, and he was the son of a duke, which usually would translate to people kissing ass trying to be his friend. So why was it that people were shunning him and calling him a 'monster'? The only thing she could guess was that maybe he had some kind of fucked up personality, but even that seemed like a bit of a stretch to get this type of reaction.

Rood was dragged out of her thoughts by a tapping on her shoulder. She turned around to see a boy with dark blue hair looking at her with a rather stupid grin. "Hi, nice to meet you, Ms. Talented," he said, causing Rood's eyebrow to twitch. The boy wasn't especially tall, not like the guys in the back, but even at his high he still stood a head taller than Rood herself.

"Sorry, what was that?" Rood asked, hoping she had just had a weird brain lapse and he hadn't said that. No such luck.

"You got a perfect score on the entrance exam, right? Then you really are talented for sure, Ms. Talented. You're amazing," He said with a cheerful voice. Glancing around the room to see most eyes on her and that people seemed to be nodding along to the comment, Rood wished yet again to punch her Master in the head for that stupid perfect score. "Hey, how old are you? You look really young."

"...Fifteen," Rood mumbled, hardly registering the question as she fell into despair. So much for not getting too much attention.

"Really? I thought you were closer to the twins age," he said, sounding surprised. Another twitch. Rood really didn't like people talking about her height, though he didn't really mention it directly, which was probably the only reason she hadn't just punched him in the face. "Though your still younger than me. I'm seventeen. My name's Dio Varus. But you can call me Dio, nice to meet you."

"Yeah... thanks..." Rood said.

The boy laughed, seeming to think that Rood was nervous instead of frustrated. "Hey, it's okay. In here, regardless of what age we are, we're all friends," Dio said, continuing on his cheerful streak, until the professor felt like it was time to drag him down.

"Mr. Dio Varus. While I understand that you having the worst grades in the class would want to get friendly with Ms. Chrishi, I would advice you actually try paying attention him my class and save the chitchat for later," Professor Heil said in front of the whole class, earning many laughs at the blue haired boy's expense.

* * *

Rood was in hell. That was the only explanation that made sense. She had somehow slipped into the demon word where the omnipotent mana dug through her brain and brought about visions of suffering in front of her.

"You're name is Rood Chrishi? Can we just call you Rood?"

"Where are you from?"

"Do you have a separate mentor?"

"What's your illness?"

"You're really amazing, did you now that?"

She was surrounded on all sides by students, a ring of them, three people thick in any direction, so that she could not escape. No matter where she looked they were there, asking her question and trying to get to know her, invading her personal space. Their endless chatter drumming in her ears.

She tried to put her hands over her ears to block it out, but on one took the hint. Instead it just got worse.

"What's wrong?"

"Are you dizzy?"

"Do we need to take you to the doctor?"

It was surprising just how many questions people would ask her even though she never responded. Though the thing that was most surprising what who came to her aide. "Hey now, how about you give her some room to breath." Dio said, making a break in the ring of people. "Hey there Rood. The Professor told me to give you a tour around the school. It's a big place, so we should probably get a move on," He said, grabbing Rood's hand and pulling her out of there and out of the room, showing her around two quick corners and into a out of a classroom, quickly losing all the other classmates before finally slowing down. "While, now that you've got some room, how about that tour, friend!" He said with a smile.

The only thing Rood could do was wonder when she had agreed to be this guy's friend.

* * *

Ichigo was relaxing by himself out underneath one of the trees in the 'Sun Down Garden', trying to just unwind a bit from the day. Not that he really had much to unwind about. He had only been there for three days but had quickly gained a reputation as a guy you just don't cross and most students would step off the path and hide in the nearby bushes when they say him coming. Which while stupid, at least meant he didn't have to deal with any crap like that new girl did.

What was strange is that they didn't seem to be afraid of him as much as they were afraid of being associated with him, since they acted in a similar way to his little sisters and to his roommate Lidusis.

He didn't really understand his roommate, mostly because the guy never talked. He only knew his name because his little sisters told him what it was. Everyone seemed to avoid him and anyone connected to him. They called him a monster, though Ichigo didn't know why. Not that he really cared. Lidusis was an alright guy in Ichigo's book. Maybe a little annoyingly withdrawn, but the guy probably had his reasons for being.

Ichigo was surprised how quickly he grew accustomed to the oversized school. He still felt like it was a stupid waste of space, but he wasn't getting lost anymore.

The guys from the middle and upper classes rarely went into the areas where the Idun students hung out, so he hadn't even seen any more of those guys he beat up.

That is, until two of them found him that afternoon.

Hearing the slight sounds of foot steps on the grass, Ichigo opened his eyes and looked to the Klad students who were approaching him. Both of them looked uncomfortable and the crowd around the clearing seemed to tense as they got closer. Based on the bandages the two wore, Ichigo guessed they were two of the ones he had dealt with before, though for the life of him he didn't recognize them. He had never bothered to memorized their appearances, and neither had anything in the form of fighting style that would be called iconic. Not that he saw them fight really.

"Can I help you with something?" Ichigo said, his voice suggested that they should just move on, though he wasn't all together not curious.

"Listen, Hadelio wanted to have a word with you. He sent us to arrange a meeting," One of the two said.

Ichigo frowned a bit, thinking back. "Hadelio... that's a name," He said. It was a bit of an understatement, since Hadelio was the family name of one of the head council members. Marquis Hadelio was one of the emperors most trusted people, and was a Second Class Magician. Though the name didn't carry the same weight at Helios, it usually wasn't something to be ignored... unless you were a First Class Magician, then fuck the guy. "I didn't know there was a Hadelio at this school. What's he want with me?" Ichigo asked curiously.

"How about you just ask him that?" The guy said, since his friend didn't seem at all inclined to talk. That might have been because his face was still a bit puffed up. Had he been the one Ichigo face stomped on? Maybe?

"In other words he didn't feel like telling you," Ichigo scoffed, glancing away from the two, "Sure, why not. Where does he want to meet?" He could always listen to the guy. And if not, he could always beat the crap out of him.

* * *

 **Ichigo doesn't really understand too much about what is going on with Lidusis, so he hasn't gotten into full outrage mode, and sorry if I don't demonize Chevel as a bully. Yeah he did some bad things, but he honestly believed that Lidusis was a monster and that anyone who got close to him would die. In his own stupid way, he was trying to be noble, even if he was completely wrong and just in denial about his sister's death.**


	6. Chapter 4

"It might be a little confusing, because the school is so big, but you'll get used to it in a couple days." Dio said cheerfully as he led Rood down on of the many pathways towards one of the domed buildings near the center of campus. The boy was extremely confident and casual, though not in the manner of a flirt. It seemed more like a stray dog who would wag his tail for anyone who bothered to scratch his ears for a second. "Though I doubt someone as bright as you will have any trouble. Hey, can I just call you Rood?"

"If you want to, go ahead." Rood responded, as she looked around her, trying to get a grip on her surroundings. There was a lot of mana in the air. It seemed as if every pillar and wall had spells on them for durability and resisting the wearing down of the paint. The garden soil had been magicked in order to remain damp for the flowers and the fountains would forever displace water because of a simple spell covered into the stone work and feed with a magic stone. "Just how much money does all this stuff cost to maintain?" She mumbled, it all seemed like a massive waste of good mana stones.

Dio seemed unaware that she was doing anything other than listening to him as he continued to ramble. "I was so excited when I first came here! Though it might not have seemed like it to you, being so smart, but it's SUPER hard to get in if you're not a noble." He said walking with his hands behind his head and looking up at the canopy roof that hung over the sidewalk. The roof was covered in the Helios symbol. That symbol was everywhere. It gave Rood the strange feeling that she had walked into a cult. "I thought my days of happiness would begin when I got the acceptance letter... but..."

The change in his voice from cheerful to depressed was so sudden it actual grabbed Rood's attention. He crumpled over into something resembling the fetal position and began to whimper as he grabbed onto his blue locks of hair.

"What happiness? Reality hasn't changed at all. I'm still no good at all." He said in a pathetic half laugh. He looked over at Rood with an expression boarding on a mental breakdown. "You're so amazing, Rood. To be the first perfect scorer, we're polar opposites."

Rood gave her own half laugh, really wishing that he would just give it a rest about the stupid test score that she had supposedly gotten. "I'm not so great. There were several questions I had been unsure about. I think I just got lucky." She said, trying to have a convincing voice.

"Can I have some of that luck?" He asked with a hopeful smile.

Rood wanted to roll her eyes. She had had enough of this, so she decided to tease the boy a bit. "You now you're pretty amazing too." She said, keeping her voice and smile censer. "Out of all of the freshmen, you managed to get last place. Not everyone could do that. I doubt I could even if I tried." She looked at him straight in the eyes, not letting up the censer look. "Simply amazing."

Dio just stared at her dumbly, trying to figure out of she was serious or not. Acting was one of the many talents she had picked up from her master. The man had a strange habit of randomly starting to act like he was in a drama, his abilities in acting were actually amazing, but he usually went over the top and spoiled the affect.

"Can... can you not say that with such a serious face? It... it sounded real." Dio said trying to recover his thoughts.

"Huh? But I am serious." Rood said, giving a slight head tilt and a puzzled expression. It was enough to cause Dio to have a melt down. Move on past him towards the open door they had been heading towards, Rood let herself have an unseen smile. That had been fun.

After recovering, Dio ran on to catch up to her as they entered a large circular room its walls covered in giant book shelves. Natural light came down though a glass ceiling three stories above them, shining all the way down to the bottom floor, even though the angle of the sun outside didn't seem to allow for that. Rood wasn't too proud to admit that the place was an eye opener for her. She had often been glued to books growing up, when she was first starting off as a magician. Some of her fondest memories were of her and Master reading some of them and debating their meaning together.

"This is place we are going to have to visit most often. The Helios library." Dio said with maybe an undue amount of pride, but she would let them have it.

"It's... big." Rood said, trying to find the words. It was more than ten times the number of books they had at the local library in her home town.

"Yep, and its a lot of information too." Dio said before pointing to some circular tables in the room that had some students sitting around them. In the center of each of the tables was a tower with a large glowing blue sphere on top of it, one twice the size of Rood's head. "You see that?"

"They're mana stones." Rood stated, surprised to see such large mana stones, even if they weren't of the highest quality.

"That's right, they're being used to cast soundproof magic over the tables. So it's a perfect place to read a book without being bothered." He said, though Rood couldn't imagine this guy have ever sat down to read a book in his life. "That's also why we don't need to worry about talking too loud here right now. Cool right?"

"They are using so much mana... for that?" Rood said with surprise. Silencing spells were costly compared to everything going on outside. Though again, Dio didn't seem to notice the none praising remark.

"The library is separated into three floors, but we can only access the first floor." Dio explained.

"Why?" Rood almost felt herself twitch, the idea that the more advance knowledge was out of reach.

"Well... because the upper floors are for the upperclassmen." Dio said with a weak chuckle, not seeming to like the reminder of his underclass status.

"Hey, you with the dark blue hair!" Someone on one of the upper levels shouted down, making Dio jump. Rood looked up to see a nineteen year old guy with long golden blond hair looking down at them with bright golden eyes. Whatever other noise was in the library instantly stopped. "You're in Professor Heil's class, right?" The guy said in a casual manner as he leaned out over a railing. Two individuals stood behind him but they didn't speak, and seemed to just be following this guy around.

"Yes, that's right." Dio said, his friendly voice sounding a bit more forced than before as he seemed to sweat right there on the spot.

"Yeah, I thought I've seen you before." The blond continued to say. "So tell me, how is the [monster] doing." He asked, a bit more aggression entering his voice when he said the word 'monster'. Rood's face tightened. The man delivered the word with more hate than the others around campus.

"Oh, he... he's doing well. Yes sirree." Dio said, rubbing the back of his head nervously.

"Really? What a shame." The blond said. Then a man came up behind him and spoke to one of the two people who had been with him early, a tall man with dark skin and a long brown ponytail. This man in turn bent down to speak into the blonds ear. The smile melted from the blonds face as he pushed off the railing and stood up straight. "Looks like I got somewhere to be. You just continue on with your business." He said as he turned and walked away.

"Uwaa... I thought my heart would stop." Dio said with a heavy sigh.

Rood looked at the blue haired boy, not sure how to interpret his reaction. "Why are you so tense? Is it because he's an upperclassman." She asked, not really caring herself who that guy was. One of the major advantages of being as powerful as she was.

Dio stared at her as if he was expecting to see her head fall off at any moment. "Oh Rood, you poor soul who have yet to learn the truth horror of hierarchical society." He moaned, shaking his head with pity.

"Huh?" It was the only response Rood was able to give. The reaction seemed too over the top.

The boy clapped his hands onto Rood's shoulders and stared straight into her eyes. "Rood! I'll tell you have to survive in this bloody and unforgiving world that is Helios." He was starting to actually make her worry. Not about the blond haired man, but out of the suspicion that she was finding herself in a mad house. "First, never go against the Upper Class, Hereis.

"Elite amongst elites whose talent and skill have been acknowledged by the school, that's who they are. There are only about twenty of them but each of them has power and privileges equal to about a hundred of us Iduns. If they come to dislike you, your peaceful school life is over." Dio said, sounding completely serious.

Rood was too frightened. Regardless how 'talented' these Hereis guys were, they were still just less than rookies who hadn't managed to awaken yet to her. She could handle a hundred of them blind folded with ease.

"Since the Hereis are so few when there are over four hundred students here, to me, they're like the stars above the heavens." Dio said, raising up his hands, making Rood worry about him again. "To them, we must look like ckicks that have just hatched from their eggs."

Rood had to pause and think. It was true that senor magicians tented to get this look in their eyes, as if they saw the world for high up above. After a while, they just avoid other humans all together because they don't feel like they are worth their notice. One rather famous First Class Magician left the empire and the safety of the Tower's barrier in order to live in the out lands with the demons... well, living with them might not be the right phrase, considering he was out there massacring them.

No one knew the man's real name, but his magician's name was pretty well known and feared; 'Kenpachi'. Now that was a monster.

Wanting to get away from such thoughts, Rood prompted Dio to move on. "What's the second thing that I need to remember then?"

Dio seemed to snap out of his worship state and looked around before leaning in to whisper to Rood. "The second thing is, among the Hereis, be especially wary of Chevel Phon Hadelio."

"Oh... Who's that?" Rood said, not really sure who was who in the school. She had only been there a few hours.

"He's that blond we just saw. Be careful not to anger him. In fact, try to avoid him as much as possible." Dio said quietly. "We don't run into Hereis that often, but if you do, it's best to just watch what you say. They are all skilled... but their personalities are... well..."

"Messed up?" Rood said aloud.

Dio clapped a hand over her mouth. "What are you doing!? What if someone heard you!?" He hissed. "I'm telling you, your life will be hell if you're targeted! Chevel is especially notorious for being completely unforgiving! If he targets you, he will go at it forever. And since his family background is amazing as well, not even the professors will be able to help you!"

"Alright, I get it." Rood said, pulling the boy's hand from his mouth and giving him a glare that made him flinch. But she collected herself before she could go off on him. She still needed more information, and all of this was very informative. "What was that about a monster then?"

Dio blinked before a nervous expression passed over his face. "Well... that would be an example of what happens when Chevel targets you." Dio mumbled weakly. It was as Rood thought, Chevel had something to do with Lidusis situation. Seeing Rood's serious expression, Dio decided to change the subject. "Let's stop talking about all this depressing stuff! We've still got a lot of places to go, so come on!" He shouted, pulling Rood towards the exit.

Rood had a feeling that it was all the information she was going to get that day on Chevel and Lidusis. She would need to continue later. Hopefully after she had giving this guy the shake.

* * *

Ichigo walked casually behind the Klad student who had been conscripted into leading him to where ever it was where he was supposed to be meeting this Hadelio guy. It was in one of the areas Ichigo hadn't gone to before, since it was supposed to be reserved upperclassmen.

Why was it reserved? Beats him. Seemed pretty much the same as everywhere else, big, white, and needlessly wasteful. And considering that the Hereis guys got an equal amount of space as the Iduns, when the Iduns were already rather spoiled and their was only one twentieth as many Hereis, they could probably wonder around the area provided for them for hours without bumping into each other.

Though the answer for why it was reserved became more apparent when Ichigo was actually shown into the room and he stood in a space as big as his entire house, richly furnished with comfortable coaches and fancy rugs. There was even a fireplace in the corner of the room, though the fire within it didn't give off any heat, it was just for the way it looked, magic was being used in the walls to keep the room temperature at a good range. And where as the white walls outsider were painted, this was true marble floors and bleached wood tables.

Ichigo was wrong, this was different. This was far bigger, whiter and more wasteful than what the Idun students got. He supposed that was what it meant to be going up in the world.

And sitting in the middle of it on a long white coach with solid gold armrests was a guy with long golden blond hair that went half way down his back and sharp golden eyes. He was another noble boy, same kind of genetically handsomeness as so many others, though his eyes were sharper than most. A smile was spread across his face. Not a friendly or happy smile. It seemed more sadistic than happy.

Behind him stood six other people. One was another Hereis student with long pink hair and an expressionless face, while the others were Klads.

"Well, how nice of you to come." The blond said with a half laugh. "I hadn't really expected you to show up so willingly, thank you for making this easy."

"I didn't see any reason not to come." Ichigo said, giving a dismissive shrug. "You probably know who I am, since you called me here and everything, but I'll guess I will start the introductions anyways. I'm Ichigo Kurosaki, nice to meet you."

The blond guy leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. "You really are a cocky guy." He said. "Yeah, I know who you are. Ichigo Kurosaki, age fifteen, you registered for Helios late but then nagged the administrators for three straight weeks until they let you in anyways. Then on your first day here, you decided to go against the hierarchy and fought against six middle class students, using rather barbaric methods." He said with a smile. "Tell me, do you know who are I? Since you're pretty new I wouldn't blame you for not."

"Actually, I don't have a clue besides your family name; Hadelio." Ichigo said, only a little crept out that the guy had gone and researched him.

"Hm, then let me introduce myself. I am Chevel Phon Hadelio, and I am someone you don't want to mess with." He said before sitting back, his smile leaving his face. "Leave us." He said, surprising the other students around him.

The other Hereis looked a little distressed. "Lord Hadelio..." He said, surprising Ichigo. With the pink hair and soft face, Ichigo had actually thought that this person was a girl. Unless it was the voice that was misleading... he decided he didn't want to find out which it was.

"You too Anna. Mr. Kurosaki and I have something to discuss alone." He said, waving her/him off. They looked unsure of themselves, but slowly they did as they were told, leaving the room and closing the door behind them. "You know Kurosaki, when I first heard about you, I was almost sure I was going to have to beat the crap out of some brat who decided to go against me." He said. His smile was still gone, but there was something else in his voice, not the cockiness of before, but something that Ichigo was having a hard time placing. "Though when I found out what exactly was going on, I can't bring myself to do it. Can't punish a guy for trying to protect his little sisters."

"Good to hear, because I never plan on stopping that mode of behavior." Ichigo said, trying to figure out what the guy wanted.

"Good then Kurosaki, I can trust that you will take care of everything for me then." Chevel said, throwing another curve ball for Ichigo to try to understand. "I'm going to be straight with you. I am going to order all my boys to leave off your little sisters, but in exchange, you have to get them to stay away from the monster yourself."

"Monster? What does Lidusis have to do with this?" Ichigo asked.

Chevel's face twitched with hardly contained anger at hearing Ichigo say Lidusis name. "I suppose I need to explain then. I am the reason everyone calls him the monster. I want everyone to stay away from him, and your little sisters just refuse to get the memo. So I want you to make them stay way, because that guy really is a monster." Ichigo just looked at Chevel for a second before cracking up a bit. "You find something about this funny?"

"No offense, but I have zero control over my sisters. They are stubborn as they come. Besides, I don't really care what kind of beef you have with Lidusis, it's none of my business. Though the idea of him really being a monster is kind of funny. The guy is just so pathetic." Ichigo laughed.

Chevel didn't laugh. His face stayed grim. "You know, when I was first told that he was a monster, I dismissed it too." He said, his cold tone catching Ichigo's attention. "When the maids of his house would give him a wide birth, when his father wouldn't even look at him, when his brother denounced him, saying that Lidusis was a monster, I thought that they were all crazy. I thought that I knew better than the people who had none him the longest. I ignored their advice. And because I did that, my sister is dead." The last word came as a snarl. "I lost the thing I cherished most in the world because if that... thing. I know what I am saying. So take this piece of advice, from someone who was once an older brother. Don't let your sisters get close to him, or you will regret it."

Ichigo searched the guys face. It was completely contorted with emotion. He wasn't lying, or at least, Chevel himself believed it. "I'm sorry for your lose." Ichigo said, the words were trained into him, as much from having to give them as from hearing them himself.

Chevel looked like he had just been spat on. "I don't want your sympathy. Just do what I say. Don't undo all the work I've put into making she that no one is ever alone with him again."

Ichigo slowly started to shake his head. "I'm afraid I can't do that. For one thing, while I know you believe what you are saying, don't quite believe it myself. For another, my sisters didn't even listen to me when I told them not to come to this school. I had to let them do what the wanted, and just came along to protect them. Finally, it would be kind of hard to make sure no one is alone with him, when I am ever night as his roommate."

Chevel glared at Ichigo, his hand going into his pocket, where he held a high quality magic stone. "I was hoping I could reason with you, but I guess you are as stupid as I was." He said as he stood up, pulling out the stone and setting it's mana to cycle until it built up into a large mass that hovered around his entire right arm. "But if I can't do this civilly, then I will just have to beat the message into you. One way or another, the Idun brats will listen to their betters."

Ichigo didn't move, he was more than prepared to fight the guy, though he had to admit that the amount of power he was calling up was impressive for someone who was not yet a real magician. It was nearly reached the level where he would be able to block one of Ururu's punches if he used it right. But none of that mattered. If he attack, Ichigo would knock him down with ease.

"What's going on in here!?" The door was pushed open to reveal another Hereis, a girl, with brown hair that was pulled back into a ponytail and brown eyes. She looked to be around seventeen, young for a Hereis, though not super young. "Chevel, what the hell do you think you're doing, don't tell me you were planning on casting powerful magic again. Can't you go ten minutes without breaking the rules?"

Chevel gave an angrily scoff at the girl. "How about you mind your own business Karina, no body wanted you here."

"Mind my own business? You do realize as the rep for the Hereis class, I'm supposed to make sure you follow the rules. So how about you stop... stop... uh..." The girl's voice trailed off as she spotted Ichigo. The orange haired boy could have sworn he saw a flush bright up the girl's face. "Um... hey. Is... is Hadelio bothering you?"

"No, not at all." Ichigo said, glancing towards Chevel who had lowered his magic stone, but was still glaring at him. "He just felt like giving me so friendly advice. Sadly, he seems to have misunderstood me, and thought I was ignoring him. It isn't that I am not listening, I just have different plans." He then turned and looked Chevel straight in the eyes. "I'm planning on keeping a good eye on things so that I can judge for myself and make sure that nothing bad happens. But since our little talk has come to an end, I think I'll be seeing myself out." Ichigo said, getting up and heading for the door.

"What are you going to do?" Hadelio shouted after him, ignoring Karina's presence as he glared at Ichigo. "What will you do when you find out I'm right."

Ichigo gave a scoffed laugh. "That should be obvious. If he is a threat to Yuzu and Karin, then noble or not, it doesn't matter, I'll kill him myself." Ichigo said coldly, looking back at Hadelio with a face that made the blond haired man's eyes widen slightly. Chevel could tell that Ichigo really meant it.

Right after that, Ichigo turned back around and walked out.

"Who was that boy?" Karina asked, earning a look from Chevel. He just didn't want to have anything to do with that.

* * *

 **Still in not finding a beta, but as time goes on, I am just caring less and less.**

* * *

 **As one becomes more and more powerful, they become bigger, whiter and more costly. Kind of like Trump.**


	7. Chapter 5

How was Rood supposed to work like this? Everywhere she went she was being surrounded by people, all of them asking her questions and trying to kiss her ass. What on earth did these people even see in her?

She tried to ask them questions that would help with her mission, but they were always drowned in a sea of dodging the question. It was just day two and she already felt like she was losing her mind, and getting no where fast. At least she could be alone in her room since there had been an odd number of girls in her class, she got a room to herself. But the moment she stepped outside of it she was back in hell.

As she entered into the classroom and saw the bright shining faces of her classmates who were going to try to muscle their ways into being her friend, she decided that the time for reckon was over. She would just have to take action and hope that they were the correct ones later.

Turning as far to the left as she could, she made her way to the back of the classroom, drawing puzzled looks that turned to terror as she went. Stopping in by the desk right next to Lidusis's in the back of the classroom, she put her stuff down on top of it. The boy himself stared at her with wide eyes, as if he was as scared as the rest of the class that a girl would approach him.

"Hello there, I don't think we've met. I'm Rood Chrishi, though I prefer to just go by Rood." Rood said, giving him a smile. Lidusis seemed to shrink under her gaze, something that hard, considering just how big he was compared to her. He didn't respond, just stared back as the other kids in class went into worried whispers. "Do you mind if I sit here? I would much rather be at the back of the class." Rood continued, when it was clear that the guy wasn't going to talk.

"Uh... you... really... don't... want..." He said, his words broken up as he tried to come up with a response for the situation. He was even shaking a little. Damn, what has to happen to a guy to make them like this? He had only been at the school for a month. Surely one month of bullying isn't that bad.

"I don't?" Rood said questioningly tilting her head and looking as if she was thinking about it before smiling again and simply pulling out the chair and sitting down. "No, I think I do." She said cheerfully, turning her eyes away from Lidusis and to the rest of the classroom to the other students. Now they were all disparately trying to avoid her eyes, acting as though she had just caught the black death. The change in attitude was so jarring that for a second, Rood couldn't believe her eyes. Then again, she would count it as a plus.

Though when she looked back to Lidusis, she saw the orange haired guy on the far side of him looking at her for a second before giving a small grin and turning back towards the window.

Well, it looked like someone approved at least.

* * *

The morning class was boring, nothing the teacher said wasn't something Rood had already known from at least four books she had read before. Though that did give Rood a chance to collect her thoughts and pounder about the reactions of not only the class, but the young lord himself.

He was starting to understand about what his mother meant when she said her son was too weak to help himself. It wasn't physical weakness, it was emotional. The guy couldn't connect with anyone around him, leaving him completely helpless to bullies. He seemed to be uneasy about Rood even sitting next to him.

The bell rang, signaling the start of the break period they were given for lunch. People quickly broke out of the silence that had hung over the classroom and split into groups to either eat their packed lunches or go and grab something from the venders on campus.

Lidusis looked like he was about to head out as fast as he could, but before he could even get out of the chair, she was cornered. "Hey Lidusis." One of the two small girls from the class said, the one with short brown hair and a cheerful smile. She was holding onto what seemed to be four small boxes wrapped together in a extra large napkin. "Ichigo, Karin and I are going to have lunch together, do you want to join us? I accidently made a bit too much, so there is more than another for everyone." She said, holding up the lunches.

Rood had to raise both eyebrows. One for the complete lack of subtlety, and a second for the fact that the innocent little girl was the one who was talking to the 'monster' that everyone was too scared to look at. It was comical really. Only made all the more comical as Lidusis moved away slowly, putting up his hands as if to shield himself from her.

"I... you really should just stay away... from me." He said before bolting out the door. It wasn't the most dignified of retreats, but it was effective.

"Wait, stop!" The girl shouted after him, her shoulders falling a bit. The second girl, the one with black shoulder length hand walked up behind her and gave her a pat on the back.

"Well, you tried... Can't say it worked too well though." The second girl said, only muttering the second part. Unfortunately, the brown haired girl seemed to have heard it, as her eyes started to tear up. "H...hey, come on Yuzu. I'm sure its fine. He probably just prefers to eat alone or something."

"Maybe, he doesn't like us." The brown haired girl, presumably named Yuzu, said glumly.

"It's nothing like that." The boy with orange hair said, surprising Rood. He didn't give any indication of being a part of the conversation, he was still just looking out the window at the clouds in the sky. "He doesn't have a problem with either of you, or anyone else in the class. I'm pretty sure his problem is with himself. He can't face others until he learns to face himself."

"That sounds pretty stupid if you ask me. Is this one of those guy things?" The black haired girl asked, crossing her arms and staring at the orange haired boy.

Rood was a bit confused. She had been under the impression that everyone at the school avoided Lidusis, whether because they believe he is a monster or just because they were afraid of Chevel. But these two little girls seemed completely fine with him, Yuzu even trying to reach out to him, and she still couldn't understand the boy.

The atmosphere between the three of them seemed too casual for just classmates of a month. The relationship between the two girls could easily be explained with the fact that they were the youngest in the class, making them closer, if nothing else, but the guy didn't fit that model. It wasn't until the boy finally turned his head away from the window to smile at the two girls that Rood noticed that they all had the same light brown eyes. Her hypothesis immediately changed from simple close classmates to possible family, whether brother and sisters or perhaps close cousins.

But before she could consider the situation any further, she found herself being dragged into it. "But I still have all this extra food that is going to go to waste then." Yuzu said before looking over to Rood herself. "Hey, do you want to join us for lunch?"

Rood had been unprepared for the offer, believing herself to be just a casual observer. "Huh? Me?" She said blinking at the girl who was giving her a kind smile. She immediately started trying to weigh her options. On one hand, she wanted to try to go and get some more information about Lidusis. These people seemed to have been trying to get to now him, even if they had so far been unsuccessful. They might have insight that they would be willing to share with Rood if she played the part of a curious classmate. But on the other hand, she needed to try to get closer to Lidusis, which would require her to actually find the guy.

However, the choice was taken out of her hands when someone else's hand grabbed onto her shoulder. "Actually, Rood and I already decided that we were going to eat lunch together, somewhere else! Come on, we need to hurry if we are going to get there before lunch is over!" Dio said quite a bit more loudly and quickly than needed as he practically picked Rood up and ran out of the classroom with her, leaving three very confused individual around.

* * *

Dio dragged Rood half way across the large campus before he actually stopped gasping for breath. Though he wasn't gasping because of exhaustion from running, rather because Rood had elbowed him in the ribs, knocking the air out of his lungs. "What was that for!?" He cried between gasps.

"I'm supposed to be the one asking you that. Why did you basically kidnap me and drag me across campus?" Rood said, acting rather calm about the whole ordeal. It was more of an annoyance than actually bad. Not like having to deal with Shic.

"You were talking to them! Don't you understand that..!" Dio started but then stopped when he noticed that people were staring. He then signaled to a storage room nearby, more gently guiding Rood in before closing the door behind them. "Why did you sit down next to the monster? Don't you realize what could happen?" Dio said, in a much quieter voice, as if he half expected people to be listening at the doorway.

"Monster? What monster?" Rood said, trying to act innocent.

Dio looked at Rood with disbelief before slapping his hands over his eyes. "Ugh... I should have explained it better yesterday. Rood, you can't sit next to the mon... next to Lord Artian."

"Why?" Rood asked, hoping that Dio would reveal some more information. It was actually a surprise for her that Dio was even still talking to her. They had only met the day before. Even if he insisted then that they were friends, she had half expected him to cut ties the moment things looked bad. Yet here he was, seeming actually worried about her.

"What do you mean why!? For your peaceful school life!" He shouted, losing some of his self control. "Rood, I don't think you quite understand the situation here, so let me explain, Lidusis is the monster that Chevel was talking about. You'll be in huge trouble if you get mixed up with his business. Everyone shuns him because he is being targeted by Chevel. You'll be the one suffering if you try talking to him."

"How did that happen?" Rood asked, cutting Dio out of his rant. The rant wasn't being very informative, so she would have to steer the conversation a little more. "It's not like he's from a low class family, and he isn't ugly or anything. What could have happened in just one month to cause everyone to call him a monster?"

"Oh... you want to know the reason why Lord Artian is called a monster..." Dio said seriously... but then his seriousness cracked and he just shrugged. "I don't know..."

"You don't know? Then I suppose I will just be going then." Rood said, her eyebrow twitching as she turned around. She was stopped by his hand grabbing onto her shoulder.

"Hey wait! I know something, just not exactly what happened!" Dio shouted, trying to stop her from leaving and going back to Lidusis. "I know that Chevel was the one that started it, but it wasn't so bad at first. Everyone else started calling him a monster about a week in after something happened."

Rood frowned. "What could happen to get this kind of a reaction?"

"Well like I said, about a week into the year most of the Idun students were gathered in the library for a class then something happened. After that, everyone started to avoid Lord Artian. I wasn't there myself because of... reasons... but from what I heard, on that day, Lord Artian, turned into a terrifying monster!" Dio shouted dramatically, throwing out his arms.

Rood only raised an eyebrow. "Really?" She said, her voice full of skepticism. "If you are lying to me, I will smack you so hard..."

"I told you I don't really know! I wasn't there! But there were nearly a hundred witnesses!" Dio said in his defense. "But since the library was closed for a couple of days after that, something definitely happened." The blue haired boy clutched his hands together as if begging. "So please, stop worry about Lord Artian before its too late! Rumors spread like wildfire here, and it is only a matter of time before someone in Hereis gets wind of this."

Rood looked at the blue haired boy, but then just shook her head. "Sorry Dio. I can't do that. It just isn't right, ignoring someone else pain just because I am afraid. It hurts just to watch it. I don't think I could stay here if that was the cost." Rood said, knowing she couldn't exactly say that it was because she was on a mission as a magician. Regardless what Dio said, she had a job, and she would fulfill it.

"But Rood..." Dio said, his voice filled with pain.

"Thank's for worrying about me. But I am going to try to follow what I feel is right." Rood said before walking past the shocked blue haired boy and out the door.

* * *

When Rood came back from lunch, Lidusis had already returned to his seat. He tensed once again when she sat down next to him, but she pretended not to notice and just smiled and said hello. But the moment she looked away from him, she started to think about the new developments. Dio hadn't been kidding about news spreading fast at Helios. Even people who weren't in her class were already starting to give her weird looks as she walked through the hallways. It really won't be that long before the upperclassmen got word of what she was doing.

She still didn't know anything about the two girls and the boy who seemed to not mind Lidusis. She still didn't know what Chevel's problem was. She didn't know how to help the duke's son get out of the mess he was in. She doubted that he had really turned into a monster. But that still begged the question of what had happened in that library.

She was so wrapped up in her thoughts, that she nearly pulled a Lidusis and jumped up in shock as someone pulled out the chair next to her and sat down.

More whispers went through the class and Rood turned her head to see Dio sitting down next to her. "Dio... what are you doing?" She said, surprised to see him there. Why was he being so loyal to her? He had other friend in the class. People he had known longer than her, and who would probably cut ties with him now, but there he was, sitting right there next to her.

He turned his head to her and gave her a smile, though he looked like he was ill. "I have no idea..." He said with a chuckle that sounded like it was holding back a sob.

* * *

"Based on what can be learned from ancient texts left behind from the age of kings, magicians were originally known as 'god's envoys'. They purified the cursed lands and punished the evil demons, thus earning themselves the title of Saviors." Professor Heil went on with his class like nothing had changed from the previous day, though it seemed as though even he was displeased about that little blond girl's choice to throw her lot in with Lidusis. Not that Ichigo cared one way or another. He was too busy being pissed off by the lesson. "However, for unqualified modern magicians that run around with illegal marks and incomplete awakenings, individuals who had been touched by demons, it is not exactly a suitable term. As such people are a danger, not only to the people around them, but themselves as well..."

Ichigo's upper lip pulled back in a half snarl as he heard the old man spouting that Tower propaganda. Telling everyone how the Real Magicians who lived by the rules set down by the Tower were the chosen of God and how they should be worshipped, while anyone who was different should be regarded with fear and suspicion, taken away to where they couldn't harm others.

And everyone just drank it up. Why shouldn't they? The Tower had existed for thousands of years, always telling people what to believe and not to believe. They were the ones responsible for the barrier that protected the Empire from mass demon invasions. Who had the power to question them?

The class couldn't end soon enough, and once it did, Ichigo dismissed himself quickly. Not that anyone would try to stop him. They still treated him like a large scary dog. That was a good thing though. The more afraid of him they were, the less likely they were to try anything against his little sisters.

Though at this moment, he was just trying to find a quiet place were he wouldn't be over heard so that he could get into contact with the Urahara Shop and ask them to do some digging for him. The subject, Chevel's sister's death. If demonic forces really were involved then it might be a clue to help him in his mission.

Once he found a private place in an storage room that seemed to have not been touched in a while, he pulled out a small purplish red glass sphere and let a bit of the mana contained in his talesman to seep into it, activating all the magical circles inside. "Come on you stupid shop keeper, pick up." He mumbled angrily when he didn't immediately get a response. The identical glass sphere on Urahara's end was always supposed to have mana in it, just incase Ichigo tried to call in.

"Urahara shop, how can I be of assistance." Urahara's half asleep voice echoed out of the glass.

"I need a check done on an event that happened a few years back between the Artian family and the Hadelios. Something about the death of Hadelio's daughter." Ichigo said, crashing himself down on a crate in the old storage room.

"Oh Artian and Hadelio you say? I wasn't aware they had any problems between them other than the usual political hubbub. Sure, I can look into it." Urahara said, giving a yawn. "What you need it for?"

"A son of Hadelio is here on campus, and so is a son of Artian. Chevel Phon Hadelio seemed to believe that Lidusis Dien Artian is an actual monster and responsible for the death of his sister. He's making the school go bonkers about it. You should see all these guys cowering at shadows."

"Wait, you don't honestly think that the young Artian is involved in demons do you?" Urahara said, sounding like he was a bit desperate for some reason.

"Doubt it. The guy has that look in his eyes. You know the one." Ichigo said in replay.

"So you don't think he is responsible, but he blames himself anyways." Urahara said, knowing exactly the look Ichigo was talking about.

"Yeah, but something that Hadelio said got to me. He said that even before that day, people in Artian's own family were calling him a monster and trying to avoid him as much as possible. Makes me wonder if there weren't other events before that one. Things that a child could do that would scare adults that much." Ichigo said. "I think that there is a good chance that this young lord has gone though an incomplete awakening."

There was silence for a few seconds before Urahara's voice came back. "Possible. Unlikely, but still possible. He would have had to have contact with a midrank or higher demon early in his life. Not the kind of thing that usually happens to a Duke's son. But if it did happen, his father would definitely have covered it up, either to protect his son or to protect the family reputation. Give me a few days, I'll see what I can't dig up." Urahara said, his voice going serious. "Keep an eye on things, but don't over react. Remember, you are supposed to be just some complete rookie. Don't get too much attention."

"Easier said then done." Ichigo mumbled as he siphoned away the mana out of the glass and the connection was lost.


	8. Chapter 6

After class was over, Rood had tried to follow Lidusis, only for the big guy to give her the slip. He sure was good at that for a guy who stuck out like a sore thumb in any crowd, since people rarely stood anywhere close to him.

She would have continued to try to find him, but Dio had pulled her aside again. Something she would have probably tried to resist more if it wasn't for a slight fasination with the fact that he was choosing to follow her lead, and partially because he offered to buy her something to eat... what? She had to skip lunch because of their first talk.

Rood herself just ended up getting a more normal sandwich and some coffee, things she had gotten a hundred times at the local shop where she lived. Dio however ordered four separate meals from four completely different cultures. Meals that probably weren't meant to go together. But that hardly seemed to matter for the blue haired boy who stuffed them all in his mouth with all the manners of a starving wolf. She supposed that being lower born, Dio wanted to experience everything that Helios could offer him as far as culture before he eventually got thrown out for his bad grades. Not that all of what he ate would be called high class. Greasy tacos beside medium rare steak, he ate it all the same. Even so, he seemed to lack some of the energy of the day before.

"Rood... you know it too right? The two of us aren't going to be making any changes here. Please, pull out before its too late. I won't say that you didn't try, but the young lord wasn't even responding. Even if you try to talk to him, he just doesn't care." Dio said as he rolled a piece of bread between his fingers, looking down at it as if he had forgotten how to eat.

"I'm not so sure." Rood said, resting her chin on her hand and closing her eyes. "I think he does care. He wouldn't be so shaken if he didn't. I think he is worried about the reprocutions against us if we continue to act nicely towards him."

"Isn't that all the more reason for us to keep our distance? Even he knows that no good will come of it." Dio said franticly.

"Would you really just walk away from him and just leave him to suffer when he is so concerned for you?" Rood asked with a slight frown.

"I... It's just... this is so messed up." Dio's head dropped to the table in defeat. "It hasn't even been a whole afternoon and already the friends I was laughing with just the day before won't even look at me."

Rood felt a little guilty. She wasn't exactly dragging Dio along, but she was trying to convince him of the cause. Truth be told, even if he wasn't a talented student and would be useless in a fight, he would still be a valuable asset when it came to getting information. "You probably still have time to pull out if you want. People would probably think you were just trying to get me to change my mind. No one would blame you for that."

Dio looked up at Rood as the girl adverted her gaze. "That would be the truth... but what about you? Will you stop?"

Rood shook her head. "I'm not the kind of person who can just watch something like this. If I am forced to leave the academy, then so be it, but I won't go against my principles."

Dio swallowed hard. "Sorry, but even if you have those kinds of convictions, there isn't much the two of us can do on our own."

Rood's face pulled into a grateful smile at the boy's use of the words 'the two of us'. For some reason, the seemingly cowardly boy was still standing strong... alright maybe not strong, but still beside her. "So you're saying that it'll be difficult with just the two of us. Then all we need to do is make some more friends who will help out."

"You make it sound so easy."

Rood continued to smile as she thought about how to best leverage the shock people seemed to be having towards her actions. But her smile slowly faded as she saw a group of four older boys, each nearing their twenties and all of them baring the Klads' blue. "It looks like it might be too late to turn back after all." She said softly, giving Dio a few seconds warning before the boys were on them.

"You two are Rood Chrishi and Dio Varus, right? We've been looking everywhere for the two of you." A short haired blond said in a half threatening voice. "We have some business to discuss. So how about you follow us for a bit?"

Dio looked to Rood, biting his lip and looking for some form of leadership from the younger student. Though her words were as shocking to him as they were to the upperclassmen. "Hm... well sure." She said, giving them a disarmingly casual sweep of her hand and small smile. Showing off how perfectly comfortable she was, even with the much large students surrounding them. "I probably know what you want, but I'll go with you."

Despite what she said, she was practically the one leading the presection as they walked towards wherever it was the older students wanted them to be. She walked with a confident ease that made the boys seem a little awkward in comparison, Dio following at her heels, though the blue haired boy looked around him like a cornered rabbit.

They were directed into a back alleyway where a tall man with dark skin and a long brown ponytail sat, leaning up against the back wall. His arms cross and he had an slightly agitated expression on his face, as if he was resentful of being there in a place that wasn't good enough for him. Rood immediately recognized him as one of the Klads who had been with Chevel the day before in the library.

"Manan, sir, we brought her for you, just like you asked." The blond Klad said, gesturing towards Rood. It seemed as though more significance was being placed on her than on Dio. Something that was good for the blue haired by, but slightly depressing.

"Good." Manan said simply. He was probably nobility, though not that high. His features were more rigid than Chevel's had been, and while his eyes were still controlled and prideful, they didn't have that intensity of the Hadelio's. "You guys can go then."

"Huh? Are you sure?" The blond asked, though the glare he got quickly explained to him that leaving was the best option. "A...alright then."

Even after the boys left, Manan didn't speak, he just stared at the two Iduns, as if trying to make them uncomfortable. Something that worked well on Dio, who was trying his best to look as small as possible and hide behind Rood's much smaller frame, but Rood herself wasn't really effected at all. She still was as calm as ever.

"So, what do you want with us?" She said in her fake cheerful voice. She was on the fence about just beating this guy up in order to send a message to his boss, but something made her wonder if Chevel was even aware of her yet. He didn't seem like the kind of guy who works through minions.

"What do I want? Shouldn't you already know what this is about?" Manan said, an attempt at an intimidating smirk brushing his lips.

"Should I?" Rood said, tilting her head and screwing up her face in an expression that said 'I'm thinking about it'. I can't think of any reason why you might want to talk."

The performance was so well given that Manan's face went dumb. "Oh... I did hear you were new... I guess it's true. Explains why you're talking so fearlessly. All right then, I'll tell you straight out. It's in your best interests not to get yourself involved with that monster anymore."

"Monster? What monster? Is there a monster in Helios?" Rood said, continuing the oblivious and sweet act.

Manan's scowled at her, starting to see through the little game she was playing. "First the Kurosakis and now this little tart. The Iduns this year just don't know what is good for them." He said angrily as he stood up. "What is it? Sympathy? Or do you get some kind of personal satisfaction out of playing friend with someone like him? Frankly, it doesn't matter because either way you are going to stop. There is a cause behind every effect. You shouldn't act so arrogant when you don't know anything. So don't get involved with the monster. Don't even approach him, because if you do, the one who will suffer will be you."

Manan had been walking slowly towards then the entire time and was now towering over Rood from just a few short inches away, forcing her to tilt her head upwards in order to look at him. "So, is that your advice?" Rood said, her expression unchanged, the threat against her meaning nothing to her.

"Advice? No. It's a warning." Manan said before turning and walking away.

"Ass." Rood mumbled as she glared at the guy's back. She wasn't intimidated in the least, though she had to admit a point on one issue, she didn't exactly know the entire situation. Something she hoped to remedy soon enough.

Dio however slid down to his knees. "Oh man, that was so scary." He said in the kind of whine one got out of a scared puppy.

"They call that a warning? It was nothing short of an open threat." Rood said, more than a little indignant that someone who wasn't even a rookie magician would dare to try to threaten her. She found herself brushed off a lot when people didn't know who she was, but usually they just underestimated her, they didn't try to intimidate her. And calling her a 'little tart', that man was asking for it. She looked forward to when open war would be declared and she could run the man's face into the dirt along side his master's.

"Since they came out and said it so bluntly... don't you think we should..." Dio started hesitantly.

"Should what?" Rood asked, looking confused at the boy, as if she didn't already know he was going to suggest backing out again. But her confident smile stopped him short.

"...Never mind. I was just wondering what you were going to do now." He finally said, giving a weak and pitiful laugh as he did so.

"Hm... As I see it, we have two main objectives to start out with." Rood said thoughtfully rubbing her chin. "First, we need to make some allies who will stand by our side."

"That's not as easy as it sounds!" Dio half shouted, though he had little conviction that Rood would actually hear his objections.

"And second, we need to uncover the truth behind what happened in the library that made everyone start calling Lidusis a monster." Rood said glancing over towards Dio and smiling. "I'll handle finding out about that incident, you will need to find people who will be able to stand up against Chevel with us."

"Wh... me!?" Dio said uncomfortably.

"Yep, I'm counting on you." Rood said with a smile. Dio spluttered for a few seconds before nodding his head.

"Alright... but how are you going to found out about the incident?" Dio asked weakly.

"That should be obvious. I'll just ask Lidusis."

* * *

Finding Lidusis' room wasn't so hard. Her permission info had already given her his room number. So right after parting ways with Dio, Rood went straight for the boys' dormitory.

It came as no surprise that the boys dorm looked almost identical to the girls, though that hardly meant anything since the entire campus was the same large white buildings. The looks she had been getting all around the campus had a different sort of feeling to them in the boys dorm. She supposed that girls would be discouraged from walking around the guys place where mischief could happen that would result in an unwanted addition to one of the noble families.

Still no one stopped her, and room 105 was pretty close to the entrance anyways.

It was still pretty early in the day, so most people were out and about, but there was still a chance that he was already in his room. It wasn't like the guy had a social life or anything that would keep him out.

Rood knocked on the door, and waited for a response. Sadly, none came. She tried again, but still got no response. "Is he not in, or is he just ignoring any attempts to find him?" Rood mumbled to herself as she stared at the door.

If Lidusis was in the room and just trying to ignore her, than she wasn't sure if she could do much about it. On the other hand, if he wasn't in the room, then maybe she could take a look inside and see how he actually keeps himself. She wasn't sure how much help such information would be, but it felt more productive than just walking away and calling it quits.

However, the door was locked, and with a bit of magic in the lock. She could easily undo the thing in an instant, but that would require her to gather up enough mana to preform the needed spell. Could she take the risk of alerting everyone on campus for no sure benefit?

As she weighed her options, she didn't notices someone was coming up behind her until the guy's shadow was already being cast over her. "What are you doing?"

Habit more than anything else prompted her reaction. She jumped forward, twisting herself around and positioning her hands into a ready stance to conjure her weapon to block an attack. However, she wasn't under attack. Rather she was just being stared at by the orange haired boy from her class.

The boy himself had his book bag over his shoulder, but at Rood's own reaction had pivoted his feet into a stance usually associated with swordsmen. The two of them locked eyes for a few moments, each unsure of how to proceed. There clearly was no precedence for a fight, but they were both quickly on edge.

It was Rood who was the first to relax and say something. "You startled me there." Rood said, moving into a casual stance and smiling.

"Right... I'm still looking for an answer of why you're standing here." The boy said looking a bit skeptical, but relaxing his stance as well.

Rood was a little annoyed at how informal he was being, and the rude manner he pushed the subject instead of apologizing for sneaking up on her, even if he hadn't really done anything wrong. "I don't see how that is any of your business."

"Whatever, just move, will you." He said, surprising her as he pushed past her and pulled out a key, opening up the door and walking inside.

"What? Wait, I thought this was Lidusis room." Rood said failing to hide her surprise.

"It is, I'm his roommate." The boy said flatly. He didn't seem interested in talking to Rood, but he wasn't closing the door in her face either. He looked over at her, seeing her still standing in the door way. "What are you doing? If you were looking for Lidusis, he clearly isn't here right now. So if you don't have any intention of coming in, just leave and stop blocking up the hallway."

Rood was confused. The reports she had said that Lidusis didn't have a roommate, but she couldn't pass up the chance on getting some kind of information on the situation. So even though the invitation was poorly given, she took it, walking into the room and closing the door behind her.

"I thought that Lidusis was the only one in this room." Rood said, looking around the room. It did have a hardly lived in look to it.

"He was up until recently." The boy said with a shrug as he put his stuff down and turned to her. "I'm Ichigo Kurosaki. If you want to know where Lidusis is right now, sorry, but I can't help you there. I have no idea where the guy is right now. Though if you have an entire afternoon free, I hear he likes to take naps in some of the open storage rooms."

"I see, thank you." Rood said, wishing that Lidusis had been there instead. This Ichigo guy wasn't exactly being threatening, but something about his expression and overall demeanor didn't seem right. Not to mention that she had reacted in a battle ready manner only to be met with an equally battle ready one. Not something you would expect from an Iduns student. They were all supposed to be unblooded by this point, having never seen a demon in their lives more than likely. But at the same time, if Ichigo was unconcerned about the threats revolving around the young lord, then maybe he would be a good source for the information Rood was looking for. "I was looking for someone who would be willing to tell me about the incident in the library. I've heard a little about it, but no one is willing to say exactly what happened. I was hoping Lidusis would be willing to tell me what happened."

"The library? Did something happen in the library?" Ichigo asked, seeming confused about the topic.

"The incident in the library. The one that started everyone calling Lidusis a monster." Rood reiterated, wondering if Dio had lied to her about the event.

"News to me, but I've only been around a few days longer than you, and I'm not the kind of guy who takes part in gossip, so I wouldn't know." Ichigo said with a shrug.

So he was a transfer student, one who joined the school after Rood had already gotten her instructions. That would explain why she had been told that Lidusis had no roommate, it was because this guy wasn't there yet.

"Not that it really matters. I don't really care about who he is or what he did or didn't do. It's none of my damn business really. Nor are you or your motives any of my business." Ichigo said as he pulled out some of his books out of his bag. "So if you don't have any questions for me, would you mind getting out of my hair?"

"Yeah, sure. Thanks anyways." Rood said before backing out of the room, leaving Ichigo to his studies. It wasn't like he would be much for information if he was a brand new student too and not prone to talking to others. His social skills seemed almost as bad as Lidusis'. Rood had met potential muggers who were less confrontational than he was.

She did wonder however, when he talked about not caring who she was or her motives, was that a blanket statement about all people in general, or did he somehow figure that she wasn't really the average student? Had she mistakenly somehow alerted him to her real nature.

Who was Ichigo Kurosaki anyways? He was clearly not from a noble background, just one look at him confirmed that much. He looked like a thug. His hands had calluses on them from excessive work, and there was quiet a bit of evidence of him using his fists fairly often. What she could tell of his build was much more in line with someone who works out for results rather than to just keep up a good figure.

None of these things were terrible common in a Magician. Most magicians valued the use of mana over any physical tempering. Some of the most senor magicians in the lower classes often showed signs of it, but that was usually an avenue taken after one reached the peak of what they can do through spell craft and mana enhancements. It wasn't the sort of thing you would expect out of just some guy at a school for rookies.

But now she was getting away from her objective. As curious as she was about Ichigo, she had to put the mission first, which meant she had to find Lidusis. How hard could that be?


End file.
